3dChef Jumps onto 3D Hubs to Offer Sugar 3D Printing

Julian Sing, aka 3dChef, runs, as far as I know, the only independent firm for 3D printing sugar objects.  As a product designer, Maker, and pastry chef, Julian was able to create his own sugar 3D printer way ahead of the yet-to-launch ChefJet 3D printer from 3D Hubs.  Until now, 3dChef has been providing its sugar printing services to local artists and businesses, which has seen his printer fabricate melting sugar cubes for music videos and even honey for a London-based artist. Today, however, the 3dChef has jumped onto the 3D Hubs distributed manufacturing network to offer sugar printing to the masses… of Holland.

3dChef writes on the 3D Hubs talk page, “We self-developed a powder based 3D printer which accurately prints water onto a layer of sugar repeatedly via a print-head. The same way a desktop printer prints ink onto paper.  In our case our material is sugar and our ink is water.  Combining these allows you to create amazing edible designs! The whole process is not dissimilar from making sugar cubes except ours are customizable and printed on demand.”  

What’s more, the 3dChef provides their production capacity… in terms of Marvin output, the 3D Hubs mascot, “In a production run we can print 42 Marvin’s that are 25mm in height in less than 2 hours. That’s 3 minutes a Marvin.”

To order sugar prints from 3dChef, your prints must have a volume of 40x30x30mm per model and solid designs or self-supporting structures with a wall thickness of 6 mm are the most printable.  And you can rest assured knowing that your sugar prints will meet food safety standards.

As exciting as it is to have a sugar printer on 3D Hubs, given the delicate nature of sugar printing, 3dChef is approaching this new business model delicately, beginning with pickup in their Tilburg store, but offering shipment within 60km for orders of greater than €150.  As demand increases, though, 3dChef will be adding more areas and linking with other Hubs to get their services out to more people. 3dChef adds “International orders can be tricky but doable. We look at these case by case.”

I have no doubt that those orders will jump up, given the fact that the ChefJet has yet to be released.  And, fortunately, the Netherlands is one of the most bustling 3D printing centers in the world, so Julian’s biggest problem will be how to count all of that dough.