Food technology

Opening a pizzeria could soon be as simple as leasing a small business space, then sticking a robot in there. That's the idea behind the Pizzaiola system, which takes human cooks and other kitchen staff out of the equation.

Like most foods, mushrooms are best when fresh … but it can be difficult to grow them yourself. Shrooly is designed to help, by automatically providing the best conditions for pre-inoculated mushroom-growing pods.

As important as kitchen ventilation is, it’s something that’s often not up to scratch. French designer Maxime Augay has now launched the AirHood, a portable range hood that can sit on a bench and efficiently pull grease and smoke out of the air.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have been tinkering away on a robotic chef and developed a machine with an ability to "taste test" food as it goes, making sure the balance of flavors is just the way it should be.

Low-salt food without a flavor penalty could soon be on the menu. Japanese food and beverage giant Kirin has partnered with Meiji University researchers to demonstrate a set of electric chopsticks that can boost people's perception of saltiness.

Whether you buy your veggies from a farmer's market or at the grocery store, you need to give them a good wash when you get home. But how clean is clean enough? Help is at hand from an unexpected source in the shape of the PureGo PD100 from Asus.

With large high-tech sustainable farming facilities located in California and Texas, Silicon Valley-based startup Iron Ox relies heavily on robots to help shoulder the workload. The company's latest bot, named Grover, can lift over 1,000 lb (454 kg).

Pretty much everyone has had the experience of finding forgotten food in the fridge that spoiled before any of it was eaten. The Nudge Tag system is designed to keep that from happening, via color-changing electronic dongles.

Although there's nothing quite like freshly picked mushrooms, growing the things yourself can be quite challenging. That's where the Mella Smart Mushroom Fruiting Chamber comes in, as it's designed to make doing so much easier.

When ingested, nutrient-rich spirulina blue-green algae is claimed to offer antioxidant, immune-boosting and cholesterol-lowering effects. And while it's typically consumed in powdered form, the Bloom system lets you grow the stuff in your kitchen.

We currently rear animals for meat and dairy, cut down forests for wood, harvest organs from the deceased and mine the earth for diamonds. But what if all these things, and more, could be grown in a lab?

Despite the fact that it's made of fermented raw pork, the Vietnamese meat snack Nem Chua does not cause food poisoning in people who eat it. In fact, new research suggests that a compound found in it could be used as a natural food preservative.