3D Systems Buys The Sugar Lab

Big companies like acquiring smaller companies and the biggest players in the 3D printing field are 3D Systems and Stratasys.  For example, Stratasys recently acquired Makerbot.  Now, 3D Systems has purchased The Sugar Lab, a small start-up by Kyle and Liz von Hasseln, a husband and wife team from Los Angeles that specializes in 3D printing customized, multi-dimensional, edible confections in real sugar.

The Sugar Lab had already been using 3D Systems' own Color Jet Printing technology "to print on a sugar bed using different flavored edible binders that meet all food safety requirements."  See more Sugar Lab photos here.

The Sugar Lab, and now 3D Systems, is not the first company involved in the 3D printing of food.  Currently, NASA is funding a phase I six-month $125,000 study on 3D printing of foods.  And Hod Lipson and Evan Malone of the Cornell University Computational Synthesis Laboratory, was dabbling in food with the Fab@Home project since 2006.  And, let's not forget the grad student and his (attempted?) Burrit0bot.

UPDATE 9.19.13:  Yesterday I attended the Inside 3D Printing conference in San Jose, CA and was able to meet Kyle and Liz von Hasseln, as well as check out their new 3D Systems-inspired creation!

UPDATE 1.4.13:  Here is a recent TEDx talk by Kyle and LIz von Hasseln