Katjes presents the world’s first confectionery 3D printer

After months of research and development and a successful beta testing in Berlin, Melissa Snover and her team at Katjes Fassin UK Ltd. have presented their flagship product at the ISM and announce the plans for the worldwide rollout.

The development marks a real breakthrough for the candy maker on several levels: the Magic Candy Factory is  the first food 3D printer to reach consumer retail and also the fastest in the development segment. It takes the Magic Candy Factory about five minutes to print confectionery weighing between 15-25 grams. Other existing prototypes in other sectors take almost an hour to do the same.

Visitors at the ISM could choose between 20 different designs, write their own name or print greetings to create vegan, glutenfree and dairy free confectionery.

The technology is based on FDM (fused deposition modelling). A mixture of natural vegan ingredients is heated  then applied using a nozzle to produce different shapes . The shapes were developed by the Katjes team with the help of 3D modelling software, and turned into G-code instructions that tell the printer where, at what speed and what frequency it needs to apply each of the layers.

Since 1988, Katjes has been advocating natural ingredients, a path it has stuck to by producing vegetarian fruit gummies. The company joined forces with Melissa Snover in early 2015 and founded Katjes Fassin UK Ltd., based in Birmingham.

Katjes believes that the market for personalisation and experience-based creation have huge potential. “We always strive to make candies that will make our customers smile, now we have given them the power and the wonderful opportunity to make a fruit gummy which is special and unique to them,” says Bastian Fassin, managing director of Katjes Fassin GmbH & Co. KG and director of Katjes Fassin UK Ltd..