3D printers are mainly used to make "things" by using synthetic resin as materials, but recently 3D food printers that make "food" such as pizza and chocolate which were developed and became a hot topic. However, these 3D printers are adapted to only one material, which is difficult to shape in various food materials. Therefore, we developed a multimaterial 3D food printer "FP-2400" that can be applied to other food materials.

Many 3D food printers are syringe pump based, but FP-2400 is screw based. This is a very new type of 3D food printer. By adopting the screw type, it became easy to control the material, as well as possible to use several kinds of materials.

So far, we have succeeded in shaping rice flour gel, bean paste, cookie etc. as food printing materials. It is possible to print with other type of food gel materials, as long as we print like this. The bean paste is a traditional Japanese sweet, and sometimes many customers like to take printed food at the exhibition. Eating 3D-shaped foods are sometimes fun, and it is becoming popular around the world.

In the future, our aim to be able to design not only shape but also will think about nutrition, taste and texture with 3D food printer. We believe that this technology can be applied to nursing care and hospital foods that require special attention and we can prepare meals tailored as their needs.

Date Published: 23 March 2018
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 10597, Nano-, Bio-, Info-Tech Sensors, and 3D Systems II, 1059718 (23 March 2018); doi: 10.1117/12.2317863

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10597:
Nano-, Bio-, Info-Tech Sensors, and 3D Systems II
Vijay K. Varadan, Editor(s)