Hoverboards and Food Hydrators: the two things Back to the Future II made the following generations aim towards. (Oh, and time travel.)

Hoverboards are still a while away but, through 3D printing, we have already moved well beyond the pseudo-technology the movie’s Black & Decker Hydrator mimicked (the device took a biscuit-sized pizza and in a matter of seconds “hydrated” it into a large, cooked pie big enough to feed the entire McFly family.)

3D printing is a perfect fit for food. There are limitless possibilities, many of which have been used already by the likes of Ferran Adrià (with processes such as 'spherification') in El Bulli restaurant in Spain.

Likewise, confectionary producers have been taking advantage of 3D printing’s capabilities also, particularly for producing elaborate designs on cakes.

UK-based 3DVentures launched a crowd-funding campaign last week on Kickstarter, to raise funds for Candy: “The First Confectionery-Focused Food 3D Printer.”

Another UK company, Cambridge-based Dovetailed, have developed a 3D fruit printer. At a UK Tech Food Hackathon earlier this year, Dovetailed printed a strawberry in a raspberry shape.

This is where things get a little more complicated. Most foods that begin as a paste – chocolate, jelly, pasta etc – require only one 3D printing laser.

Invent

However, once you start introducing foods that have multiple consistencies and textures, like fruit, more lasers are needed.

"For fruit, two materials are printed – one core structure and one gloopy structure to bind it all together," explains Dr Dermot Brabazon from the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Dublin City University.

“Rather than just using one printer head, two are used. You could, perhaps, have cellulose as the material that would be part of the strawberry’s structure and sugar solution to bind it all together. It’s a similar process to the method used for printing hip implants.”

This is a form of “spherification” and could be applied to numerous tastes and flavours.

"With our novel printing technique, you can not only recreate existing fruits, but also invent your own creations," says Gabriel Villar, chief inventor at Dovetailed. "The taste, texture, size and shape of the fruit can all be customised."

There is increased interest from Nasa and the US military in 3D printed food also. The US army's Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC), have been looking into developing the technology so that soldiers could print food on-the-go if they are lacking in some particular nutrient.

“Soldiers stationed in remote areas where there is little by way of food, may bring various nutritional supplements with them: protein, vitamins, minerals etc, in powder form,” says Brabazon.

“If they were to take it with liquid every day, not only would it quickly become unappetising, the nutrients wouldn’t absorb as well as they would if digested in solid form.”

Medical applications

Last year, Nasa awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract to Systems and Materials Research Consultancy of Austin, Texas "to study the feasibility of using additive manufacturing, better known as 3D printing, for making food in space". The company has already figured out how to print pizza for astronauts on long missions.

Will 3d printing’s entry into the food industry be a game changer or is it nothing more than a flash in the pan?

"From a consumer point of view, we don't really see a real application there," says Deirdre MacCormack of Mcor Technologies.

“People tend to get excited about 3D printing in any realm. It’s just another thing we can print but there are not a lot of practical applications. It’s more of a gimmick.

However, designer Susana Soares believes there's more to it than that. "3D food printing is still a novelty and a technology in development," she says.

“I think it will take time before a majority have a printer at home as a domestic appliance alongside a microwave and kettle.

“The more immediate real potential and applications, however, lie in the production of food en masse, or in medical applications such as tailored food for patients with specific needs.”

Soares has a particularly novel application for 3D food printing technology: the consumption of insects. Insects are an excellent source of protein, and are very low maintenance in terms of farming.

So should food and land scarcity become a major problem, insects might be a great alternative to cattle, pigs and fowl.

Unfortunately, we are talking about creepy crawlies here, which are not that gastronomically appealing, at least not in this part of the world.

Soares’ project, Insects au Gratin (which featured in the Science Gallery’s Edible exhibition back in 2012), encourages the use of 3D food printing technologies to facilitate new ways of cooking insects, so that they can be mixed with other food products to encourage food acceptance.

“The aim is to combine what can be a potentially sustainable process with a sustainable food product,” she says. “3D food printing technologies enable the development of the aesthetics of food.”