Upprinting Food, Using Food Waste to 3D Print Sustainable Meals

Upprinting Food is a startup that was developed in the Netherlands. Its main objective is to create 3D printed dishes from all kinds of food waste. Elzelinde van Doleweerd and Vita Broeken are behind this circular economy project that aims to give a second life to all food that is thrown away even though it could still be eaten. They are able to create durable dishes with a unique design. To better understand the projects of this young company, we met Vita, co-founder of Upprinting Food; she was able to share her vision of a more sustainable world with us with the use of 3D technologies.

3DN: How did you discover 3D printing technologies?

It was during my studies in industrial design that we were taught different manufacturing techniques. Many have used a 3D printer to quickly make prototypes and I must say that we were bitten pretty quickly!

3DN: How did the idea of creating Upprinting Food come about?

Upprinting Food started when my partner Elzelinde completed her final year project. In addition to her degree in industrial design, she specialised in food technology at the University of Wageningen. She combined her knowledge (and passion) in food and sustainability to design this project. For my part, I knew I wanted to focus on food waste and the opportunity presented itself to combine this with a 3D printer. This was very well received and we were invited to present Upprinting Food at the Beijing Design Week and the Design Week in the Netherlands. Subsequently, we decided to create a company around this.