We could be printing our own cheese sooner than you think

Science.

We love everything about cheese... the color, the texture, the smell, EVERYTHING. As our beloved Monica from Friends once brilliantly suggested, if we could live in a house made of cheese... life would be great. via GIPHY Well, the dream is one step closer thanks to a team of scientists at University College Cork. Encouraged by the international interest in 3D printing as a food process, the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences set about investigating whether cheese could be printed into unusual shapes, textures and formats by the technology. We spoke to Professor Alan Kelly of UCC who said they were incredibly excited at being one of the first research teams to delve into dairy products in relation to 3D printing:

"Most international reports have focussed on chocolate and confectionary, but we are one of the first groups anywehere to demonstrate it for dairy products.  We hope that this work will show the principle of printing cheese and similar products, and perhaps lead to a whole range of exciting applications in this area"

Professor Kelly went on to explain the actual process...

 "We tried lots of different cheese types, before finding that we could easily melt and redesign processed cheese into a variety of shapes and formats using the printer, and could see differences in cheese structure and texture due to the process"

Behold... the future of cheese.

Used with permission of Professor Alan Kelly, UCC

The researchers at UCC are committed to continued work in this area, which combines scientific interest, consumer imagination, and creative fun. Keep up the good work, and we'll take 12 of the Mascarpone bears please.