In 2009, Phillips Design  presented a sci-fi vision of the future with a conceptual food printer that could produce a perfectly balanced meal at the touch of a few buttons. Part of a research project called Food Probe  which looked at how we might source and eat food in 15 to 20 years’ time, the imagined machine would allow our future selves to print out our ideal combinations of flavours and nutrients in an unlimited range of forms.

It sounded too Star Trek to be true. But with 3D-printing technologies advancing as rapidly as they are, the idea may not be as far off as it once seemed.