We are backed by Closed Loop, a venture fund that invests in sustainable consumer goods, advance recycling technologies and services related to the circular economy. So how do we, Foodini and 3D food printing fit in? Here's one way: one of the benefits of 3D food printing is reducing food waste by recovering “ugly” fruits, vegetables, and cuts of meat. Or, with not-ugly foods... or foods that might be rejected by kids! Like this absolutely perfectly fine broccoli in the first picture, below.
See anything “wrong” with it? I don’t. But ask my son, who is under 10 years old, what he would eat from this broccoli... he would say only the tops of the broccoli, that is, the florets. I do count myself lucky that my son eats broccoli in the first place, but as he only eats the florets, he tends to leave a lot of broccoli on this plate, which is a waste.
And I do mean, he eats only the florets. He refuses to eat any of the floret stems or stalk. Let me show you by taking a cut of broccoli that I would typically eat - middle picture, below. That's what he sees, using the right hand side of this piece of broccoli as an example. He usually leaves a pile of floret stems on the dish, with the florets nibbled off. I normally don’t even bother trying to serve him the larger broccoli stem that the whole head of broccoli sits on.
One day as an experiment, broccoli florets, stems and some of the stalk were steamed, chopped, seasoned with a dash of olive oil and salt, and then quickly printed into a broccoli star.
Result? The star was devoured in less than a minute by my son and got the thumbs up! Less overall food waste, more broccoli eaten by child. That’s definitely a parenting win.
Full disclosure, I’m co-Founder of Natural Machines, the makers of Foodini: a 3D food printer. Foodini makes all kinds of savory and sweet foods using fresh, real ingredients. With Foodini, this is real food... 3D printed.
