3-D printers will change the way we experience food
ALEX LIGHTMAN is a futurist who spends a lot of his time thinking about what new food technology will mean for the way people eat.
And he believes that one of the surest things about the future of 3-D printed food is that it won’t work the way people imagine it will.
‘‘People think that things are going to be automated and scaled, but that’s not true,’’ he said.
‘‘The truth is that people really misunderstand how it’s going to work.’’
Lightman serves on the advisory board of Natural Machines, a Barcelona-based company that is getting ready to launch a new 3-D printer called Foodini that will allow both amateur home cooks and Michelin star chefs to manipulate food in ways that weren’t previously possible – at least commercially.
The machine, which will be released later this year, can produce almost any shape and process many different inputs.
Homemade pasta of almost any shape and size, perfectly packed vege burgers, carefully portioned, identically-shaped servings of mashed potatoes – these things will all be easy tasks for the new food toy.
‘‘We already have a number of restaurants, including national chains, and Michelin starred chefs who have expressed interests,’’ said Lynette Kucsma, the founder and chief marketing officer of Natural Machines.
Like so many innovations before it, 3-D printed food will give rise to all sorts of projections – some truer than others – about what the future of food will look like.
One vision is a dystopian future in which much of our food is mass produced by some later mutation of current 3-D food printing technology.
But there’s another possibility: that by taking different ingredients, combining them together and producing food to exact three dimensional dimensions, the future of food could be wildly creative – and fun.
‘‘The key word here is customisation,’’ said Lightman.
‘‘I really don’t think people quite understand how much control they will have over the things they will be able to order.’’
The future Lightman sees is one that takes Burger King’s longheld slogan, ‘‘have it your way’’, to a much more literal place.
Once the price of 3-D printers has fallen enough that large food companies, like Starbucks or McDonald’s, have them at stores around the country, and the machines are advanced enough that they can handle a nearly endless list of food items, traditional menus will serve only as inspiration.
‘‘Eventually, you’ll be able to get a custom meal that looks exactly as you want it, that meets the most ridiculous and precise requirements,’’ said Lightman.
Lightman isn’t the only one who expects 3-D printing to uproot the food ordering experience by introducing endless customisation. Others familiar with the technology feel similarly about its promise. Hod Lipson, a professor of engineering at Cornell University who runs the Creative Machines Lab, has written an entire book about 3-D printing.
‘‘It’s incredibly disruptive, but not in a way that replaces production,’’ said Lipson. ‘‘You’ll never see Doritos made with 3-D printing, because the production process is too slow.’’
You might, however, see the precision the technology allows you to change the way you buy a specific pack of Doritos.
‘‘Imagine a future where you could dial in what you want from, say, a granola bar or cookie or chip,’’ said Lipson. ‘‘That’s what we’re going to have.’’
3-D printing will eventually allow not only for ingredient or portion-specific customisation, but calorie-specific requests. Two friends, wanting the same dessert but in different size, in other words, could order it not in somewhat nebulous relative sizes – small, medium or large – but precise calorie portions.
Eventually, there might be restaurants that have no cooks, or waiters, or cashiers – only iPads with thousands of recipes to choose from and 3-D printers to meticulously process each order.