Layer by layer, 0.2 millimetres at a time, a specialised printing machine at Belgian chocolate shop Miam Factory applies melted chocolate to shape a three-dimensional object.
Miam Factory -- French for "Yum" -- was spun off three months ago from nearby University of Liege's Smart Gastronomy Lab, which researches technology in the food and drinks sector, and operates four specialised 3D printers.
In the run-up to Easter, Gaetan Richard, the founder of the start-up, has been hard at work making new chocolate creations a reality through the technology of 3-D printing.
Richard has been preparing beer bottle-shaped dark chocolate for near-by brewery Bertinchamps, to be the prizes at its Easter egg hunt on Sunday (April 16) as well as other designs for individual customers, businesses or hotels, such as the luxury hotel Sofitel in Brussels, where 3-D printed chocolates from Miam Factory are now on display.
The idea for a design is conceived between a client -- a business or an individual -- and Richard, prepared on computer software, a prototype is made, altered if necessary, and the design is ready to be printed and eaten.
Dark chocolate is the most sought after, Richard says, though milk and white chocolate are also able to be printed.
The chocolate is 3-D printed by a continuous stream of liquid chocolate leaving a container at over 30 degrees Celsius, while the printing element moves in the required pattern as programmed, building the design up vertically, layer by layer.
Depending on the complexity of the designs, printing can take from 10 minutes to three hours. The chocolate printed is normally 0.2mm high and 0.9mm wide, though the precise measurements can be altered.
The bottles for the Bertinchamps Brewery took two hours and 52 minutes to print. Had all the chocolate used been printed in a straight line, it would have measured 24.57 metres in length.
