Say hello to Foodini

A new generation kitchen appliance that combines technology, food, art and design

19-Jan-2015 - Spain

Foodini is a 3D food printer that looks stylistically clean in any kitchen. A great looking appliance matched by its functionality designed for use every day, it helps create savory or sweet cuisine.

The food is real food, made from fresh ingredients. Foodini promotes home cooking; it does not replace it. Foodini manages the difficult and/or time-consuming parts of handmade food preparation that often discourage people from cooking at home, like rolling pasta dough, filling ravioli, and crafting food in different silhouettes. One of our goals is to keep the food natural and appetizing.

Ranging from everyday foods to more elaborate creations, Foodini makes food with height and shape (e.g., chocolate 3D figures), or flatter foods (e.g., crackers). As it’s technically a 3D printer, you could say we print food. You can think of Foodini as an assembly (e.g., assembling ravioli, or printing food in a designed shape) and finishing appliance (e.g., plate decoration.) Foodini does not automate all your cooking, nor does it cook food. If necessary, it can keep food warm as it works as it contains a heating element. Foodini arrives ready for use (plug and play.) There is a touch-screen mini tablet that functions as the user interface embedded on the front of the device. The machine is sleek, and most of the technical moving parts are cleverly hidden from view.

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We envision a future for 3D printed food that goes far beyond just chocolate or engineered food. (Although we do chocolate too!)

FOOD MADE FROM FRESH INGREDIENTS
We live in a world where processed foods are readily available. But have you read the ingredient list on some of these products lately? The number of preservatives and unknown ingredients is prevalent. People are trending towards going back into the kitchen and making their own food. Making your own food (and knowing all the ingredients) is obviously better, but it does require more time from you in the kitchen versus opening a bag/box of something processed, frozen or already prepared. Enter Foodini: it minimizes the time you need to spend in the kitchen to prepare fresh food that you may otherwise tend to buy as a “convenience” food. You prepare the fresh ingredients (with the help of a blender, food processor, or prepared by hand), load them into Foodini’s food capsules, and watch Foodini print your chosen recipe. Or, take advantage of your free time and go do something else while Foodini works in the kitchen.

FOODINI MANAGES THE DIFFICULT AND/OR TIME-CONSUMING PARTS OF HANDMADE FOOD
Foodini takes on the difficult parts of making food that is hard and/or time consuming to make fully by hand. One of our goals is to streamline some of cooking's more repetitive activities – forming dough into breadsticks, or filling and forming individual ravioli – to encourage more people to eat healthy, homemade foods. No complex culinary experience required. Choose your recipe from our online recipe site, or create your own. Then let Foodini do the hard part. You prepare and load the fresh ingredients, and Foodini will create the dish. Depending on the recipe, the food is either ready to eat after Foodini is done (e.g., a chocolate dessert), or you’ll need to finish cooking the dish prior to eating (e.g., ravioli). Make common snacks at home. Rather than buying pre-packaged, processed snacks, make them with fresh ingredients at home. Pretzels, breadsticks, crackers, cookies... it’s all possible with Foodini. And Foodini prints them in consistent shapes and sizes, allowing for even cooking. Homemade meals made with ease. Some homemade meals are simply time intensive to prepare, if done all by hand. For example, how often have you made homemade ravioli? Rolling out the dough, filling it, adding the top layer of dough, and then cutting it to size takes time. Let Foodini do it for you. Simply load the dough and filling into Foodini, and Foodini will print individual raviolis for you. After Foodini is done, put the ravioli in boiling water to cook, or, for a modern twist, bake them in the oven.

FOOD MADE FUN
Why shouldn’t you play with your food? Design food into different shapes. Make a quiche in the shape of a dinosaur. Create pictures with sauces that kids can “fill in” with veggies. Write messages on pieces of toast for breakfast. Add an intricate topping to a cupcake. Draw pictures with salsa on your tortilla. Decorate a plate or food itself to enhance your food presentation. Make food more visually appealing. Who says food always has to be a serious affair?

Why did we start Natural Machines?
The three original founders (Emilio, Alex & Rosa) encountered a problem in the “sweet” market, based on their experience in a traditional bakery business: the cake/sweets market still has a very traditional manufacturing process, resulting in up to 80% of the costs tied to manufacturing and distribution. While raw materials account for only 20% of the final product.

The idea surfaced that Foodini would let consumers choose what ingredients went into their cakes/sweets, rather than the manufacturers, while minimizing the complexity of assembly. This would also allow people with food intolerances or allergies to create cakes that complied with their food restrictions. Natural Machines would sell pre-packaged ingredients in food capsules that slide into Foodini, consumers would choose a recipe from the touchpad on Foodini, and the recipe would print.

With the addition of the fourth member (Lynette) of the founding team, we explored the possibility of expanding the capabilities of Foodini: Rather than just being a cake/sweet machine, what if it printed savory foods as well? Rather than forcing consumers to always buy prepackaged food capsules, what if we “opened” the system and allowed people to load their own fresh ingredients? This would massively expand the range and variation of recipes that people could make, based on individual preferences.

Not only could we expand the recipes Foodini could print, but people could also create their own recipes and share it on the Foodini online community for other people to print.

We also want Foodini to be used everyday, even several times a day. We all want to avoid the dreaded cabinet... once kitchen appliances disappear into a kitchen cabinet they rarely see the light of day again. Foodini has to look good, and be useful. It has to earn it’s right to be on a kitchen countertop at all times. We believe Foodini can do just that.

So what else can Foodini do besides create recipes? It makes food fun. It’s easy for Foodini to do a plate decoration, using food of course, or to decorate other food already plated. You eat with your eyes as much as your mouth so let Foodini help to make food more visually appealing. Or, make food just plain fun.

https://www.yumda.com/en/news/1144429/say-hello-to-foodini.html