Type Private Area served International | Founded January, 2016 | |
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Headquarters Columbus, Ohio, Cupertino, California Key people Anjan Contractor (Co-founder)
Jordan French (Co-founder)
Chintan Kanuga (Co-Founder)
Ben Feltner (Co-founder) Products Industrial food processing equipment, 3D printing robots | ||
BeeHex is a Columbus, Ohio and Silicon Valley-based business-to-business company that specializes in 3D food printing cofounded by engineers Anjan Contractor, Jordan French, Chintan Kanuga and attorney Ben Feltner. The company's robot 3D food printer draws comparisons to the Star Trek Replicator and the Back to the Future: Part II Rehydrator. The company's robots 3D print a variety of foods but they are best known for making pizza using real dough, tomato sauce and cheese.
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Background
In 2013, BeeHex cofounder Anjan Contractor was awarded a NASA grant under the Small Business Innovation Research program to help produce the world’s first 3D food printer usable in space. Contractor applied for a grant under SBIR phase II but due to a reduction in NASA funding the 3D food printing initiative was postponed. In response, Contractor recruited engineers Jordan French and Chintan Kanuga and attorney Ben Feltner in 2015 to form BeeHex, Inc. in 2016.
At South by Southwest interactive, BeeHex printers 3D printed pizza in the shape of the United States. Following the exhibition producers from ABC’s Shark Tank called BeeHex to ask the company to pitch its business on the television program. In April 2016, the company was accepted into Plug & Play’s start up accelerator program in Sunnyvale, California.
In June 2016 BeeHex demonstrated 3D pizza printing in the shape of a heart at Food Loves Tech in New York, New York, where the company connected with top Neapolitan-style pizza chef, Pasquale Cozzolino. In the same month in Sunnyvale, California, Zagat produced a short film on 3D food printing using BeeHex and Dylan's Candy Bar as its examples. In July 2016 BeeHex announced Pasquale Cozzolino as its culinary adviser.
In August 2016 BeeHex won a nomination from Vice Magazine for its Taste Talks Award for Best New Technology. The company was also nominated for the IEEE Leadership Award and TIMMY Award for Best Tech in Silicon Valley.
In October 2016 BeeHex 3D printed "block O" shaped pizzas at The Ohio State University School of Engineering tailgate and fundraiser in Columbus, Ohio. The company introduced 3D food printing to the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Braga, Portugal.
Products
BeeHex’s robots 3D print food using a patent-pending pneumatic system that operates as a piston to control the 3D printing of food. The company’s 3D printing robot follows instructions from a computer-aided design to extrude food into shapes on a print bed, layer by layer and using multiple food materials. The BeeHex pizza printer communicates with a computer to accept input files that articulate a specific shape and recipe using pizza dough, tomato sauce, and mozzarella cheese on demand. BeeHex engineers developed a mobile app that allows users to customize food and receive a push notification when it is ready for pick up.
According to the Columbus Dispatch BeeHex's 3D Chef printer makes pizza in less than half the time an average pizza line cook takes. Because the food assembly is automated fewer workers are required at a pizza shop and 3D Chef require less space.
According to TechCrunch, BeeHex is part of the answer to preventing food shortage crises. According to BeeHex, 3D printers can be used to reassemble produce into their original, palatable form "using less energy and producing less waste in the process" relative to the existing food supply chain.