Vital for good health, important for various daily bodily functions, vitamins are often consumed in smaller amounts and depending on the functions one is looking to enhance, we can easily take a variety of these supplements at the same time.
Rather than taking them as if they were an unpleasant drug prescription, Melissa Snover, avid proponent of supplements and founder of Nourished, decided to suit a person’s lifestyle and nutritional needs by personalising their vitamins and minerals. Her secret? Using 3D printing to create one sweet vitamin that will combine all the nutritional needs of each consumer.
Her previous experience in gelatine-free confectionary and 3D printing gummy sweets for children has certainly helped a lot in developing a consumer-friendly product. However, it should be noted that beyond this catchy and “Instagrammable” product, there is a scientific reasoning.
‘The hydrocolloid encapsulates each ingredient, protects it from interference from other ingredients and allows them to survive the harsh gut and make it all the way to the colon, meaning that the ingredients are better absorbed and better utilised by the body’, Snover explains in an interview.
From a manufacturing perspective, each layer of the 3D-printed vitamin ‘gummy’ contains a different nutrient. The Nourished team keeps the actual vitamins in sort of cold store. Once a custom vitamin regime is created, it is loaded up on to the specially designed cartridges of the 3D printer, which is programmed to layer mixes of customised active ingredients.
Dailymail explains that “each 3D printer, costing £50,000 (≈ €58 000 or $69 000 USD), can produce a month’s supply in five minutes. With up to 20 printers able to run for 18 hours a day, the company can churn out up to 400 orders daily — more than 6,000 stacks daily per printer. Get Nourished claims all its raw ingredients are sourced locally, with 98 per cent from Britain, and come in highly concentrated and absorbable forms.”
As for the custom vitamin regime, it should be noted that consumers fill in a questionnaire which helps to define their goals (for instance, if they are looking for more energy or better sleep). This questionnaire encompasses their eating habits and exercise to screen time.
Following this quiz, an algorithm selects seven vitamins, minerals and superfoods from the 31 available — which include for instance ginseng, vitamin A and coenzyme Q10 — and sends instructions to the 3D printer to create the gummy in the form of a single layered tablet.
For example, to feel energised, improve one’s immunity and lose weight, then one will need a pill which is made of ashwagandha extract, Careflow mango powder, ginger extract, white kidney bean extract, LactoSpore probiotic, vitamin A and selenium.
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