Join ITSPmagazine for an exclusive look into CES 2024's '3D Printed Food & Robotic Chefs' panel, where we delve into a fascinating conversation with food robotics pioneer, Jonathan Blutinger.
Guest: Jonathan Blutinger, Food Robotics Engineer, Redefine Meat [@RedefineMeat] / Columbia Engineering [@CUSEAS]
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanblutinger/
On Twitter | https://x.com/blutinger
At CES | https://www.ces.tech/sessions-events/speaker-directory/jonathan-blutinger.aspx
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Hosts:
Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast [@RedefiningCyber]
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/sean-martin
Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Notes
Hey everyone, Marco and Sean here from ITSPmagazine, giving you a quick taste of what's cooking at CES 2024. Get ready for a panel that's set to revolutionize your kitchen: "3D Printed Food & Robotic Chefs." Join us for an insightful session with Jonathan Blutinger, a Food Robotics Engineer from Redefine Meat and Columbia Engineering.
Dive into the future of dining as Jonathan shares his journey in the world of digital cooking technologies. With a background in robotics and a passion for food innovation, he's shaping how we think about meal preparation and consumption.
This panel, part of CES 2024's must-see lineup, explores the blend of technology and culinary arts, promising to open new avenues in food preparation and presentation. Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a foodie, or just curious about the future of eating, this is a session you won't want to miss.
Join us at the Venetian on January 10th, from 10:00 to 10:40 AM, and be part of a discussion that's sure to leave you hungry for more. Remember, to attend, just ensure your CES registration is in order and grab your pass – it's that simple.
See you there, where technology meets taste at CES 2024!
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Resources
3D Printed Food & Robotic Chefs: https://www.ces.tech/sessions-events/spoon/spoon02.aspx
Learn more about CES 2024: https://www.ces.tech/
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Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
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[00:00:00] Sean Martin: Marco,
[00:00:00] Marco Ciappelli: Sean, what's going on?
[00:00:02] Sean Martin: I'm starving, my friend. I'm starving.
[00:00:04] Marco Ciappelli: You're starving. Yeah. Is there any robot delivery there in Manhattan?
[00:00:10] Sean Martin: I'm going, I'm going way left of delivery. I'm going to making it.
[00:00:15] Jonathan Blutinger: You're going pizza.
[00:00:17] Marco Ciappelli: You're going pizza slice. I know what you're going to do.
[00:00:20] Sean Martin: I love, I love a good slice of pizza.
[00:00:22] Marco Ciappelli: Well, you know, you're in New York. That's a good place to have pizza.
[00:00:25] Sean Martin: Every corner I turn, there's a, there's a bar I can hop into and grab a slice for sure.
[00:00:32] Marco Ciappelli: Just cannot wait for that bar to just be like a robotic 3D printed food. How's that sound?
[00:00:40] Sean Martin: I've not, I've I'm sure they exist in the city. I've not come across one yet.
Uh, certainly none in my neighborhood, but I'm aware of anyway, but I did come across a barista robot the other day. Very cool. I think it was Midtown somewhere. Very cool. I didn't see it in action. It was, it was on break.
[00:01:01] Marco Ciappelli: They take break too.
[00:01:02] Sean Martin: They clocked out of the time clock.
[00:01:04] Marco Ciappelli: Oh my God. This is fun. You know what is fun, Sean, is that we, this is part of a, of course, with a little bit of, uh, entertainment to start the, the episode. This is about CES, our coverage of that fantastic event where I'm sure that we're going to be It kind of like the jets on there with robots everywhere, flying, uh, toasters and all that kind of stuff.
And, uh, we are talking to a bunch of, people that actually talk there. They are on panels. They have their keynotes or part of the organizers. And today we're actually going to talk about a panel that is of course about food, 3d printed food and robotics. So, uh, Jonathan, welcome.
[00:01:48] Jonathan Blutinger: It's nice to see you all.
You definitely buried the lead with that intro. Right. . It's like, Alice, are we talking about our research here?
[00:01:55] Marco Ciappelli: We we're, we're gonna go. We, we lower the level to a point that everybody's comfortable. . I can't go lower than that.
[00:02:03] Jonathan Blutinger: I like that feature. You, you depicted .
[00:02:07] Marco Ciappelli: All right. So let's, let's start, uh, with, uh, with you, who you are and, uh, and then you can ready go for what, uh, we're gonna talk about on your panel.
[00:02:17] Jonathan Blutinger: Yeah. Happy to be here. So, um, Garcia? Yeah. My name is Jonathan Luten. Um, I am a food robotics engineer, um, coming from Columbia University and, um, working slightly with Redefine Meat, who's a plant based meat company. But, um, my background's all in mechanical engineering. Um, I'm not a food person. I'm not a food scientist.
I got onto this mostly during my PhD at Columbia. I followed a professor, Hod Lipson, who was doing a lot of work with self aware robots, robots that can create, you know, innovative different things. And one of these things was, um, a robot that could 3D print food. Um, so initially this was kind of a weird esoteric topic, but as I kind of got into it more, I did a lot of research around characterizing lasers for cooking purposes and then eventually developing a machine that can not only 3D print food for you, but also cook it at the same time.
So. Developing a digital cooking platform of sorts that can, um, assemble, cook meals for you. So developing the hardware and the software, uh, soup to nuts, um, of this kind of entire platform. And I guess that's what kind of landed me a spot on this panel.
[00:03:26] Sean Martin: I love it to know. I'm excited about this conversation for many reasons.
One, it's a topic that I love food. Um, But also technology. And I'm really interested in, in your role of robotics engineer. And I want to get to the food part of it in a moment, because I have some, some questions on that. But tell me a little bit about robotics engineering. Um, I don't know that it was something that was available to me when I was considering going to college and university.
Um, I went to the software engineering, uh, world of things, um, clearly manufacturing, robotics, engineering there, but not, not a, I don't know what I'm trying to say, tell us a little about your, your, uh, journey into that, that world and what. What some of the things are for sure for that.
[00:04:22] Jonathan Blutinger: Yeah, for sure. And it's funny you say that because now when I go back to give talks at, you know, high school or primary school that I grew up at, they all even, they all know what 3d printers are, which is a crazy idea to me.
I gave a talk at my primary school and these first, second, third graders showed a 3d printer on the slide and everyone was like nodding their head. They knew what it was. And like, this is, we didn't even have those and we barely had those in college. They was like, just starting to become a thing. So maybe that dates me as well, which is kind of weird.
But, um. No, so the idea of food robotics engineering, um, so my background, like I said, is all mechanical engineering. It's design, mostly design manufacturing, but within mechanical engineering, there's a lot of sub specialties. You can do, you know, thermodynamics, heat transfer design. So I kind of went more towards the design route.
Um, and then during my PhD, I just got involved a lot with. Developing these machines that can do different functionalities. So, um, I think the distinction between robotics and typical mechanical engineering is robotics is you're building more with your hands. You're, you're integrating not just mechanical, but also electrical.
And coding. So a little bit software, a little bit electrical engineering, and then mostly mechanical design. Um, so you kind of have the one that you fall back on, which was for me is mechanical design and in manufacturing, but you get a little breadth of knowledge and all these other kind of, you know, complimentary fields, and then that can be applied a lot of different things.
And in my case, I applied that towards food, um, which kind of like you touched on your, it's an interesting field. A lot of people are interested in it. People I find are very emotional about food. I've learned in this process more so than perhaps religion and politics. That's a very hot take, but I stand by it.
Um, so yeah, I think it's a, it's a field that's can be kind of contentious. Um, and interesting, especially when you talk about automation in food and there's a lot of, uh, maybe biases with certain new technologies. So. Yeah. It's an interesting field to kind of get involved with.
[00:06:17] Sean Martin: And I love that you, that you went there because when I, uh, I'm software engineer at heart, uh, I look at the operations for all this stuff in the magazine and, and I think I share a similar goal with the things that I work on from, uh, from an automation perspective, which is to save time.
Well, improve accuracy and save time. Um, occasionally I'll get into the space of. Can I make something better with automation and in robotics? I'm wondering if you can talk to us a little bit about what you're doing. Is it, is it about making processes more efficient to improve the quality by eliminating or reducing human error or is there, we're making food way better because we can print it and engineer it and and streamline processes using robotics.
[00:07:19] Jonathan Blutinger: It's a great, um, that's a great question. I think, I think initially I saw it as, oh, this is going to be such a much more efficient way to do all these great things. Um, but as I've gotten more in the weeds with the technology right now, it's hard. If you were to look at this in a short term, you could say, this is not faster.
This is not more efficient. This is not cheaper by any means. But it's an entirely new way to combine food ingredients, um, which just opens the door to so many new possibilities we couldn't even imagine. Um, so that's where I think as the engineer and the tinkerer, I get really excited. Um, but similar to you, I'm also very pragmatic.
I feel like most engineers are, where if I can do something more efficiently and cheaper, it's a no brainer. I'm going to move towards an automated kind of realm. I see this with fast casual restaurants, especially with some of these bigger companies, which are starting to create some kind of robotic offshoot.
where they're trying to automate their processes. Um, so yeah, so without naming any names, you can probably, you've probably seen the articles about this in the paper a lot, but yeah, I think, um, I think for me, so right now it's, it's, it's, it's hard to see that, that end line, but I think where it gets exciting is when you combine software with food, which hasn't really been done in a big way.
Anytime you touch software with an industry, it just totally propels it into all these different verticals. Um, and we haven't seen that for food yet. So I think, um, I think that's for me is what drives me.
[00:08:50] Marco Ciappelli: All right, let me bring it to society because what's interesting, what people should know is that there is a 100 percent Italian and 250 percent Italian on this.
And, uh, I can picture a lot of chef in, in restaurants in Florence or even my mom and my dad say, hell no. Like that's not going to happen, right? Um, at least for the quality part of things, but you know, I, I am in technology and I think that we, we can reach the level as we are, we other creative, because for me, food, it's, it's creative as well.
Um, so. What I want to go with this is that you're going to be on this panel that is called Three Printed Food and Robotics Chef with four more people, if I'm understanding, including the, um, the editor of The Spoon, which is a publication that the name, I think it gives it away, talks about food and, uh, and you're kind of, um, I think projecting into the future, which is my favorite things to do.
So what, what is possible now? You already say it's kind of slow. It's maybe no better, no faster, uh, no more economical. So number one could be, why do we do it? And what can we expect in the next decade? I believe that's what you're going to be talking about at the panel.
[00:10:07] Jonathan Blutinger: For sure. For sure. Um, and also don't want to pretend to.
Be the, be the person who holds the crystal ball that knows what's going to happen in the future.
[00:10:15] Marco Ciappelli: Come on. It's the end of the year. You have to, you have to do predictions.
[00:10:19] Jonathan Blutinger: Everybody likes predictions, right? They want to know what happens in five, 10 years. I think in my ideal world, if I were to look 10 years in the future, um, you know, we would ideally have some sort of digital cooking appliance, whether it be strictly a food printer, some kind of laser cooking device or something that's some, some modular assembly of multiple different cooking, almost like a cooking box.
I think, I think we're getting closer towards more of an automated kitchen, um, where these sorts of things will be more ubiquitous and in our homes. Um, There's so much more connectivity happening around us, even with our personal assistants, with our Alexis. I feel like I have to whisper Alexa because otherwise my Alexa is going to activate.
Um, and I'll hear it in the other room. Um, so I think, I think with the whole IoT movement, things are getting so much more connected. It's a no brainer that, you know, you're going to have your smartwatch or your something counting your calories, your energy consumption. And then you have some actionable thing in the kitchen, which is going to fill in the gap for you.
Cause right now we have so many tracking devices, so many things that are gathering all this data on us. But how can we make this actionable? You know, besides actually making us, you know, look at the numbers and adjust maybe our step counts, if there's something that could actually supplement us in terms of food that can actually use this information, that's where it gets exciting for me.
So, um, I think a cooking appliance that can customize the meals for you. And I think that's where kind of the food printing element comes in when you have an assembly machine. That has all the ingredients that all of the micro macro nutrients they can dial it in. Um, much more than say, if you go out to a restaurant where half the time you're ordering something off a menu, but you're not actually in the kitchen seeing the chef make it for you.
So do you actually know what goes into the food? So in a weird way, I think, um, digital cooking brings you closer to the food and it creates more transparency and you actually get to see what you're eating. Um, which I think is really important for health and nutrition
[00:12:23] Sean Martin: because it's software software is driven by data, right?
We're also talking about connecting it to robotics Printing the food obviously putting it in the machine that's gonna cook it or cool or whatever process is required But I can, I can envision a world where you mentioned the restaurant, right? There are famous chefs that have recipes and a process. And if we can replicate those at home using these machines, that that'd be pretty cool.
I don't know if that opens up a whole nother world of commerce where instead of going to, to, uh, the times cooking and downloading a recipe, you actually subscribe your, your system to, uh, the system to the, yeah, the recipe catalog and, and the way you go.
[00:13:14] Jonathan Blutinger: Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that's definitely an avenue.
Um, and, um And I think in other ways too, it's, it's maybe, maybe, maybe when an issue I have in trying to predict how this can be used in our lives, it's like, it's because it's, it's, it's almost as if we're wielding a new weapon in our kitchen. So if you think about a lot of the foods we're used to cooking, you know, Marco, you alluded to Italian cuisine, um, you know, the nature of having love in the food, I think is a big thing culturally for a lot of Europeans and, you know, people around the world and each of their cuisines that they cook.
So in no way am I trying to replace the pizza Napoletana or anything like that, you know, I think, I think there's, there's something to be said about traditional home style cooking. I think this is like treat this as like having a new cooking appliance that allows you to cook a different type of food.
Um, you know, something that perhaps is layered in a new way or something where you get inspiration from your normal style of cooking. But. In no ways actually substitutes what you're used to eating. I,
[00:14:17] Marco Ciappelli: I can actually see, sorry if I jump on this, but like in health care application for that, like the wellbeing where you're like, okay, um, I need to dial in all these things for whatever conditions somebody may have, of course, or a diet.
And then yeah, but if I really want to indulge in really good food. I'm still going to go to the restaurant and I cannot see a pizzaiolo robotic rolling a pizza dough in the, in the air, but another application I'm thinking and tell me if I'm wrong, but maybe more of a, I mean, you, you cannot lead on to that with more fast food, but I'm also thinking, um, larger.
Places like hospitals, for example, where you need to really pump out a lot of food and maybe the, the manual labor, and maybe you're not paying attention so much to the taste of the tomato as you would do in a five star restaurant.
[00:15:19] Jonathan Blutinger: Yeah, no, that's a great point. That's a great point. I think, think about this in a setting where you need more of, uh, you need to dial in more, um, or, or be able to keep track of the nutritional profile of foods for people who perhaps have certain dietary restrictions.
So, like you mentioned, hospital use I think is a great example. You can treat this almost like a nutritionist and a personal chef in one device. So it can recommend meals, it can track your eating habits. So perhaps people who have certain dietary deficiencies too, who are celiac or maybe certain, certain gluten intolerances or iron deficiencies.
And, you know, I know a lot of research that says this is also being, um, looked at, um, with the army, you know, for soldiers who they need to be able to perform at the top of the The top of their, you know, top of their energy, you know, everyone's a little bit different. Everyone needs a slightly different catered meal.
Um, but another interesting one too is, which we didn't kind of see when I first started doing this research is. For, um, for alternative meats. Um, so when you're looking at trying to recreate structures or, you know, intricate muscle patterns of different foods, you can do this and dial in fibers, textures, flavors, more, more carefully, which is super interesting.
[00:16:34] Marco Ciappelli: Or astronauts and Mars, astronauts and Mars, you know, yeah.
[00:16:38] Jonathan Blutinger: As opposed to bringing a chef, you just bring a machine with you. It's.
I
[00:16:46] Sean Martin: want to talk, uh, briefly about what can be printed. So clearly meats. Um, I'm wondering what other types of foods we, and meals I can, I can see where a robot puts together a hamburger with the 3d printed piece of meat. And I don't know, do you, do you print the bun and, uh, all the other stuff? I don't know if that makes sense.
That, so that's what I'm trying to figure out. What, what can be printed? Yeah, and why why printed versus just a slab of
[00:17:21] Jonathan Blutinger: yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's a great. It's a great point I think I think first maybe maybe the issue why some people have trouble on kind of picturing is Usually when I talk about 3d printed food, I think people first think That these are ingredients that are made in some lab, you know, they're, they're science based.
There's not, they're not real foods, but really printing is just depositing ingredients. It's, it's a, it's a very fancy way of saying depositing, but I think in our heads we think printing and we think industrial processes, we think old Xerox printing machines, but you know, inks and plastic and all this metallic components, but really that's just a bias.
So I think, um, I think what I say is you've definitely had 3D printed foods. Pasta is printed, you know, when they extrude it through the molds, they get cut off. You know, burgers are in a way printed cause you have to grind the meat and then that's how you get your patty. So those are probably more 1D printing, one dimensional printing.
3D comes in kind of when you start to, when you can move around in 3D space. Um, so very, in terms of a broad stroke that might kind of hone, hone your thoughts more, but, um, I think in general right now, um, when we're printing anything, that's a, anything that can flow through a nozzle. Can be printed. So liquids, pastes, powders, small solids.
Um, so really we can print most things. They just perhaps, you know, you couldn't print a whole pear or something like that. You'd have to first turn it into some sort of, uh, you know, a paste that can be flowed. So, um, but most of the foods we eat, um, start in a soft form. They get their texture, like burgers, for example, when you actually cook them.
So it's kind of a misnomer that you say, okay, all these foods are soft, but once you cook it, you get that texture and that crunch. Um, so really you can fill in the gap there.
[00:19:11] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, I really think I agree. It's like maybe shaping or molding or like a more. That's the one of those case where the word carry and heavy weight on the perception of things.
Um, let's, let's get the last couple of minutes and we already discussed this. You're going to come back on Redefine Society, maybe bring some other people with you. And we're going to go much deeper into all of these. Um, couple of minutes to end with the presenting or at least asking people to come.
They're going to say yes or watching it online. I don't know if it's going to be streamed or not, but. Um, the panel you're going to be on, which is going to be Wednesday, January 10 at the Venetian level four. We put this information in the, in the notes anyway, but yeah, a couple of words and an invitation to people that may be interested in this.
[00:20:01] Jonathan Blutinger: Yeah. I mean, I think, I think it'll definitely be a very interesting discussion. Um, the panel brings together people from academic backgrounds, like myself, people are in industry, people developing these cooking appliances, you know, not just cooking, but also different types of foods. So. Um, it definitely brings together a diverse panel, which is always what you like to see in a panel, a little bit of push and pull, um, and Mike Wolfe, the host of the spoon, and who started food CES.
So he's a, he's a big name in this field, understands a lot about the industry, and I think you'll do a really good job of kind of guiding the discussion to thinking about kind of what's coming in the future, what you can expect. Um, and yeah, I'm really excited by it. This is my first CES. I've always heard about this, you know, it's a very renowned conference at this point.
Everybody knows, most people know about it in the tech world, at least. So I'm super excited about it. And, um, I think it'll be a great discussion.
[00:20:55] Marco Ciappelli: No doubts about it.
[00:20:55] Sean Martin: It's going to be delicious. A great lineup there, uh, folks. And, uh, yes, I did say it.
[00:21:01] Marco Ciappelli: And food will be served.
[00:21:02] Jonathan Blutinger: Sorry about the food puns. I gotta say, it comes out like it's hot cakes for me.
[00:21:10] Sean Martin: I love it. Well, exciting. This is really cool. I appreciate, uh, you sharing some, some of the background on the role and what's possible. And I'm excited to hear what comes out of this, this panel conversation. Hopefully everybody gets a chance to join you there for that. And, uh, yeah, I'm looking forward to the Redefining Society episode as well.
In the meantime. Marco, we have a lot coming from CES, so
[00:21:39] Marco Ciappelli: yeah, a lot of conversation are lining up. This is one of the first actually number two. So we'll if you're listening to this, stay tuned, subscribe. We will have a list. I'm thinking more than another five. Um, minimum, and all before the show, and then we will keep talking about what is going on there.
Big event, and we're excited to be somehow part of that as well. And I'm going to go have an avocado toast now. I don't know if you can print that, but I'm going to just slice it myself.
[00:22:11] Jonathan Blutinger: Guaranteed at the end of our discussion, you will, you will be hungry by the end of it. If we're, if you're not, then we didn't do our job.
Of course.
[00:22:18] Sean Martin: I'm hungry now. I'm going for a slice.
[00:22:23] Marco Ciappelli: All right, Jonathan. Thank you so much, Sean. Thank you so much, Marco. Thank you myself so much. Bye, everybody. Stay tuned for more.