Sydney company launches 3D chocolate printer

If 3D printing is the meme of the moment, 3D printing with chocolate has to be the next big thing.

Sydney company Solididea is producing the Chocabyte – a kitchen-benchtop sized, $99 3D printer for chocolates.

To use the printer (once you have your chocolate design), you simply heat the chocolate cartridge in the microwave or hot water, then place the cartridge into the printer and press start. A hard chocolate print is made in less than 10 min, and ready to eat instantly. There will be a bank of ready-made designs available or the promise to be able to make your own designs. That last element is of course crucial – there’s only really a point to this when you can print your loved-one’s face on the chocolate. The small size means you are going to be printing out individual chocolates not a life-size head or anything like that.

The first 500 units “custom built in our 3D printer workshop here in Sydney Australia” sold for $99. There’s no obvious price on the next batch although I think we can assume it will around the same point. It appears that the printer requires specific chocolate cartridges which are sold at 4 for $10: It’s not clear how many chocolates you’d get per cartridge or what sort of chocolate is involved. Nor, by the way, can I see any pictures of the actual printed chocolates. But, hey, for $99 there’s a lot of potential for experimentation – and if you can eat the failed experiments that’s more fun than the teething problems I had with my PLA 3D printer.

Overall it’s always great to see something innovative coming out of Sydney. And when you put innovate and tasty together – that’s a good way to find a winner.