Systems & Materials Research Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A17-078

Description

Warfighter field feeding has many shortcomings including limited variety, inadequate nutrition, and the inability to tailor nutrition to an individual. Soldiers have a wide range of caloric and nutrition requirements based on body type and activity level, and based on environment temperature, humidity and altitude. To address these problems, the Army and other military branches would benefit from utilizing 3D printing technology to create energy dense food items that are available in a variety of taste and texture profiles, and are tailorable to an individuals caloric and nutrition needs. To address these needs, SMRC proposes the FoodRep on-demand food replication 3D printer. FoodRep is a durable, rugged, three-axis motion platform integrated with a multi-ingredient positive displacement dispense system to produce precisely measured, accurately formed food items with tailorable nutrition, calorie content, taste, and texture. FoodRep food items can be used as a stand-alone soldier feeding solution, or can be used to augment traditional feeding solutions such as MREs. Additionally, FoodRep has great promise to enhance injured soldier care in field hospitals or other medical facilities by being able to accurately control calorie and nutrition intake as well as having the ability to introduce medication and probiotics into the soldiers diet.