For most of us, the Star Trek concept of a food replicator was totally science fiction. Other ideas like dehydrating an entire meal into one pill and then putting it into a machine to rehydrate it onto a plate of food. Again, totally science fiction. In later years, science fiction looked at 3D printers and said, hey, we can apply that to food. 3D printed food started showing up in science fiction novels for years. 

Now it’s time for the reality. 

You won’t find it on the label, but 3D printed food may be coming to your grocery store someday.  

According to msn.com,
‘Steakholder Foods is an Israel-based technology company that uses 3D printers to produce plant-based meat and fish that emulate meat’s taste and texture. It recently announced that it’s bringing its brand, Perfecta, to the U.S.’ 

Stakeholder Foods has big plans. In a recent press release they said that they plan to bring 5 Plant based products to your grocery store. 

Whitefish Patties, Salmon Patties, Filet Mignon, Marbled Steak, And chicken breast. All plant based. No meat byproducts and it will all be made using 3D printing technology. 

Now based on this press release, we still don’t really know quite where these products are going to show up, but they do say that the products will first be showing up in the Northeast. So, we here in the Northwest may have to wait for a while. 

A 3D printer for your food. 

To be clear, this is a plant-based product that is 3D printed. It is not a VAT-grown product like lab-grown meat (Which actually exists by the way) using cells collected from animals and then growing those cells in a lab environment. 

So, the big question for me is, if I had access to this product, would I try it? And my answer is yes; I’d try it at least once. When Burger King came out with their plant-based Whopper, I tried it out. Whenever Stakeholder Foods is going to make their products available in the Pacific Northwest, I’ll try it out and let you know. 

Yes, what we used to think of as the far future seems to be running up to us much quicker than we ever thought possible.