Ikea's Lab-Grown 3D Printed Meatballs

Three years ago Mark Kanters designed the Magic Meatballs for Next Nature’s Meat the Future Project. Seems like Space 10, Ikea’s research laboratory, was inspired by this concept and came up with a re-design of their famous meatballs. Creative Director Kaave Pour and copywriter Bas van de Poel explored the future and the possibilities of the undisputed protagonist product of Ikea restaurants.

After the introduction of vegan meatballs, as based on the belief that a meat-based diet won’t be possible and sustainable in the future, they started looking at alternative ingredients and technological manufacturing methods. “We used the meatball’s shape and size as a canvas for future foods scenarios, because we wanted to visualize complicated research in a simple, fun and familiar way” said Kaave Pour. “There’s hardly any culture that does not cook meatballs - from the Swedish meatball, to Italian/American spaghetti meatballs to spiced up Middle Eastern kofta”.

In 20 years from now the demand for food will increase together with our population and they are not the only ones to envision a radical change in the ingredients we consume today. To replace meat they proposed different kinds of protein such as insects and worms. This may not sound appealing but, according to them, in order to be more efficient and sustainable in the future we need to keep an open mind on the subject of nutrition.

"It's quite difficult to picture that in the near future we will be eating insects or artificial meat. But, with the increasing demand for food, we need to start considering adding alternative ingredients to our daily menu. You could say that Tomorrow's Meatball gets people a little more familiar with the unfamiliar” explained Bas van de Poel.

Cooks of the future will receive a significant help from technology, such as 3D printers with which will assemble perfect spherical meatballs made from lab-grown meat, algae and insects.

Source and Images: Space10