Understanding 3D food printing technology: An affordance approach

Abstract

3D food printing is an emerging technology which has seen increasing interest in its application across different sectors of society. Despite this, there have been limited efforts to examine and understand the technology through social scientific perspectives. This paper bridges this gap by analyzing 3D food printing technology using an affordance approach in order to better understand its unique features and possible use cases. We propose a taxonomy of 3D food printing technology affordances – amalgamation, nutritional customization, textural customization, flavor customization, visual customization, and phygitalization. Drawing on contemporary work on technological affordances (Davis & Chouinard, 2017), we describe how this taxonomy can be applied to draw useful ways of thinking surrounding the development, design, and implementation of 3D food printing technologies across different sectors in society.