Okay, we’re used to seeing and using technology everywhere. In housekeeping, and perhaps more so in catering, technology has a very positive impact. But here at CAP, even we’re still amazed by some applications of new tech. Take ‘printed food’, for example.

This week, the Daily Telegraph reported that municipalities in Sweden are to start 3D-printing food at care homes for the elderly. This is designed to help “stimulate residents’ appetites by making puréed food look like the real thing”.

The head of catering at a municipality on Sweden’s west coast explains that the idea is to make something that’s more aesthetically pleasing to look at; to make it look good to eat by recreating the original form of the food. Together with its project partners, the municipality hopes to be able to take puréed broccoli and chicken, which is today served as dull circular or square slabs thickened with egg and starch, and reconstitute it into florets and drumsticks. Apparently, the 3D-printed chicken will look like a chicken leg but have a consistency comparable to panna cotta – great if you find it hard to chew or swallow.

Read the Telegraph article here.