Meat the future Cultured, fermented and 3D printed foods are almost on the table, but will dinner still taste good?
by John Lehndorff
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s the brilliant comedian and social commentator George Carlin once wisely said: “The future will soon be a thing of the past.” In the world of food, dining, farming and grocery shopping, the future isn’t waiting its turn. Companies are fabricating entrees that are cell-cultured or fermented, 3D printed and constructed from pea protein, banana peels or seaweed. Facial recognition software is invading the supermarket aisles. Electric chopsticks promise to make food delivered by drones taste better. Here is a glimpse into the futuristic meals and technology that will change how we cook, dine, eat and shop in the next decade.
Israeli company Future Meat plans on having its cellcultured meat on U.S. shelves this year. … Juice chain Pressed is offering animal-free egg white protein made by EVERY Company using fermentation to replicate animal protein. … Colorado-based Meati Foods is introducing an alternative steak product made almost entirely of mycelium, or mushroom “roots” … London’s Symplicity Foods is turning mushrooms and miso into plant-based meats using a fermentation process. … Austria’s Arkeon Biotechnologies is using fermentation to transform captured carbon dioxide into proteins. … Umaro Foods is making plant-based bacon from seaweed. … Israeli startup Plantish is using 3D printing technology to create plant-
Residents of Canberra, Australia, can order more than 250 of Coles supermarket’s most popular grocery items by on-demand drone delivery service. The drone hovers and lowers the package to the ground. … DroneUp is providing drone delivery from 34 Walmart locations in six states including Arizona. The top-selling drone-delivered item at one of these stores is Hamburger Helper. Seriously.
Scary food tech on aisle 9
First law of robotics: make coffee
A Cambridge University research robot is capable of tasting salt and other ingredients in a recipe and adding more as needed. … Japanese researchers have created a set of electrical chopsticks that create a salty taste in the user’s mouth. ... Under development: a TV screen you lick and taste a range JUNE 2, 2022
deal with glitches like the robots’ tendency to malfunction when
Here comes the ice cream drone
Meats is using 3D printing for plant-based meats that creates whole cuts of vegan meat. … General Mills’ new alternative dairy cream cheese is made from pea and dairy proteins using microbial fermentation technology.
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intelligence to monitor coffee volume and temperature using predictive analytics. … Betty-Bot robots are bringing orders to restaurant tables at the Marriott Fort Lauderdale Airport, while a robot at the AC Hotel Miami Dadeland delivers food from several restaurants to rooms. … Robot servers at Robotazia in
using concentrated ingredients to mix more than 100 cocktail varieties at home.
Take a bite of the meativerse
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uses an electric current to stimulate the taste buds and make food taste better. … Panera Bread is testing the CookRight
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technology that checks the faces of customers buying alcohol. A recent survey from Piplsay shows 69% of customers believe grocers should inform shoppers when facial recognition is in use. … Philadelphia cream cheese installed a device to diffuse the smell of freshly baked cheesecake into the dairy aisle. … Instacart has announced it will cover tips that customers pull back after their orders are delivered, an offense known as “tip baiting.” … Minnesota-based company Recombinetics is set to sell beef from cows whose genes have been altered through CRISPR technology to tolerate hot weather.
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