DailyDirt: Printing Messages On Food

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Fri, Dec 21st 2012 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Food labeling can be a controversial topic when it comes to getting everyone to agree what information should be included with various foods. That said, technology that just enables printing information on food can lead to some fun (not just informative) innovations. Here are a few cool ways to get a message across via food.

A robot espresso machine can print short messages onto coffee foam -- and advertise for a text messaging startup at the same time. If this catches on, YouTube will inevitably have a video of someone printing "Marry Me?" in coffee. [url]
The killer app for 3D printing could be chocolate printers. Printing Valentine's Day messages in chocolate is just the beginning. [url]
Fruit labels usually leave sticky residues on your fruit that need to be washed away, so why not just make the label adhesives out of soap? Soaps are usually pretty non-sticky, though, but the idea of using more friendly adhesives on produce is a good thought. [url]
Are generic corn flakes really a huge problem for Kellogg? What if each corn flake was individually labeled with a Kellogg's signature -- written by lasers? About 128 billion bowls of Kellogg's Corn Flakes are eaten every year, so that's a lot of laser printing... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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Filed Under: coffee, corn flakes, food, labeling, printing
Companies: kellogg

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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2012 @ 5:02pm

I think one should be told what it is they are paying for and possibly ingesting. Anything less is simply deception.
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- Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2012 @ 5:12pm
  
  Re:
  what about labeling dihydrogen monoxide? it kills people every year! scary stuff!
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  - Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2012 @ 8:24pm
    
    Re: Re:
    That was a rather funny episode in trolling the public, maybe a few people learned from the experience but it is doubtful anyone was harmed by it. However, intentional deception of a paying customer is a different story. Food suppliers know that some potential customers are concerned, right or wrong, about certain ingredients and yet they refuse to disclose whether their products contain said ingredients. They do this in an attempt to protect their profits and some have even coerced the court system into blocking their competitors from claiming a lack of said ingredients. This goes well beyond humor and is subject to litigation, possibly criminal prosecution.
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