Victoria Mundell / Staff reporter
Cana Technology, a California based company with a focus on food and beverage innovation, has developed the world’s first molecular beverage printer, changing the way society approaches beverage manufacturing and consumption, according to article by Christine Hall “Cana Technology raises glass to new capital as it readies beverage printer for market.”
Cana’s molecular beverage machine has been in its developmental stage for the past 4 years and is officially releasing its prototype to the market after securing $30 million in funding from venture foundry The Production Board.
Over their 4 years of development, Cana researchers deconstructed drinks and analyzed which ingredients gave them their taste. They discovered that once you take away water only about 5% to 10% of the components left in a beverage makes up its flavour.
Being that 90% of a drink is water, Cana realized that the global food and beverage industry has essentially been delivering water from point A to Point B, creating hundreds of trillions of water waste per year.
Cana has concentrated 84 of these ingredients into their cartridges using only the essential 5% to 10% of beverage ingredients that are needed to give any drink its “taste, aroma, and mouth feel” said CEO Matt Mahar.
As stated by Michael Wolf “Cana Unveils Molecular Beverage Printer, a ‘Netflix for Drinks’ That Can Make Nearly Any Type of Beverage,” the machine itself is about the size of a toaster and can produce an infinite variety of beverages while acting like any other home appliance.
The company has partnered with multiple brands to add pre-installed drink options in the machine, as well as creating their own from scratch. The machine also enables customization, allowing consumers to control sugar levels, reduce or enhance flavours, up the alcohol, control caffeine levels, and add vitamins.
Each cartridge holds up to three months’ worth of beverages, and the device senses when its low and orders more automatically. The cartridges are also designed to be sent back for recycling at Cana.
Their mission as a company is to “rebuild the $2 trillion beverage industry while reducing waste production, excessive water usage, and CO2 emissions.” said Mahar.
Each year the manufacturing and distribution of food and beverages creates 481 billion plastic bottles. Once consumed, only 20% are recycled. As well as creating plastic waste, shipping the world’s beverages emits about 543 million metric tons of CO2 annually, as reported by Mahar “Cana CEO, Matt Mahar, explains how Cana is rebuilding food and beverage manufacturing.”
Cana’s beverage printer decentralizes the beverage manufacturing process by delivering only the machine and the key ingredients needed to the consumer, reducing the use of plastic, water, and the CO2 emissions of the beverage production system by more than 80%, as well as saving the typical household roughly 100 beverage containers per month.
Consumers will have access to 1000s of drinks without the waste produced by manufacturing, bottling, and transporting goods.
Since the company has just starting production, the machines pricing is quite high with a $99 reservation fee, offering $499 for the first 10,000 orders, then $799 as the regular price moving forward, as found on Cana’s official site. However, the drinks the machine produces cost less per glass than drinks bought at market value, making the machine a significant financial investment. Sparkling waters are just $0.29, iced teas are $0.79 and craft cocktails are $2.99.
Pre-orders are already open, and deliveries are estimated to start early 2023.
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“Cana CEO, Matt Mahar, explains how Cana is rebuilding food and beverage manufacturing” Matt Mahar