Application of 3D printing for customized food. A case on the development of a fruit-based snack for children

3D Food printing is an emerging technology able to manufacture food with desired shapes and structure. We investigated the effect of two printing variables, print speed and flow level, on the printability of a fruit-based formulation designed to provide the 5-10% of energy, calcium, iron and vitamin D required for children of 3-10 years old. Printed snacks satisfactorily matched the designed structure. A 70% flow resulted in irregular structures with oversized porosity. By increasing flow level, a higher amount of deposited material produced an increase of total volume, weight and side-length of the samples while the fraction of porosity reduced. The distribution of filament thickness also enlarged by flow while the pore diameter distribution varied both with flow and print speed. The growth rate in height of samples increased by print speed until 50 mm/s, while the deposition rate of formulation was affected by print speed and flow level.