Beehex will 3D-print your meal with lab-engineered bacteria. Will you eat that food?

Researchers working for the startup called Beehex proposed at the January 2023 Consumer’s Electronic Show in the US to 3D-print food made from plastic waste. The technology employs lab-engineered, plastic-eating bacteria to obtain edible biomass. 

This idea consists of shredding the collected plastic waste and depositing it in a bioreactor with lab-engineered bacteria, letting the micro-organisms process the plastic into edible biomass, which is then loaded in a 3D printer to create food, such as stake for example, Interesting Engineering learned from Beehex representatives. 

The concept, which – let’s admit it – is a bit scary, might have lots of applications in the food printing industry.

One is the need to produce nutritious meals out of non-perishable materials for astronauts on long-term space missions, in spaceships where cooking is normally prohibited.

The invention could also be an option in food growing practices, such as processing the parts of plants that are not consumable and are usually thrown away. Again, employing specifically-designed bacterial.

This could be interesting especially to food relief agencies that are critical of food waste in highly industrialized countries and hunger-affected regions in the developing world.

Early tests have shown the bacteria did not make people sick but it’s still unclear what are the long-term effects from consumption of food from plastic. This is what BeeHex researchers are still working on.

At least Elon Musk, the American billionaire and CEO of SpaceX who dreams of establishing human colonies on Mars, will surely like the idea.

Beehex’s 3D-printing project is funded by NASA and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) - one of the biggest government-backed forces behind innovation in the US, which is exploring ways to assemble 3D-printing devices in remote areas and use local materials for the sustainability of orbit or land bases.