3D-printed pasta – the shapes of things to come?
Italian food giant and Dutch researchers working on technology for rapid production of custom-designed pasta shapes
Once, not so very long ago, the pasta of Italian dreams was made by hand in the kitchen. But today, the world's leading pasta producer is perfecting a very different kind of technique – using 3D printers. The Parma-based food giant Barilla, a fourth-generation Italian family business, said it was working with TNO, a Dutch organisation specialising in applied scientific research, on a project using advanced technology.
Kjeld van Bommel, project leader at TNO, said one of the potential applications of the technology could be to enable customers to present restaurants with their pasta shape desires stored on a USB stick.
"Imagine it's your 25th wedding anniversary," Van Bommel said. "You go out for dinner and surprise your wife with pasta in the shape of a rose."
He said speed was a big focus of the Barilla project: they want to be able to print 15-20 pieces of pasta in under two minutes. Progress had already been made, he said, and it was already possible to print 10 times as quickly as when the technology first arrived.
Barilla aims to offer customers cartridges of dough (cartuccie di impasto) that they can insert into a 3D printer to create their own pasta designs. But the company refuses to give further details, saying that the project is still "in a preliminary phase".
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, the US company 3D Systems showed a new range of food-creating printers specialising in sugar-based confectionary and chocolate edibles. Natural Machines, a Spanish startup, revealed its own prototype, the Foodini, which it said combined "technology, food, art and design" and was capable of 3D printing food ranging from chocolate to pasta.
A: 1. Barilla is experimenting with new ingredients for pasta.
B: 2. Barilla is experimenting with new ways of designing pasta.
C: 3. 3D printing is very expensive.
D: 4. The example of rose-shaped pasta shows what 3D printers can do today.
E: 5. Pasta is only made in Italy.
F: 6. 3D printing is getting faster.
G: 7. Barilla says their 3D printer is ready to be sold commercially.
H: 8. Barilla's pasta today is designed by a team of Italian specialists.
I: 9. 3D Systems is an example of a European company.
J: 10. The Foodini 3D printer was developed in Europe.