Trends in food printing technologies: nutritional therapeutics, environmental sustainability, and food safety regulations

Global food security is escalating due to rapid population growth, climate change, and emerging public health crises, necessitating innovative and sustainable food production strategies. Food printing has emerged as a promising technology with potential applications in personalization, resource utilization, and the development of customized foods with precise control over shape, texture, flavor, and composition. This systematic review critically evaluates recent advances in food printing through a comprehensive literature search and bibliometric analysis of 170 publications. The review highlights the relationships among food constituents, printing techniques, printable materials, and multidimensional developments from 3D to emerging 4D, 5D, and 6D printing concepts. Extrusion-based printing is the most proven technology, and rheological optimization is recognized as an important factor in printability and product quality. Applications in personalized nutrition, texture-modified foods, sustainability, and therapeutic dietary management demonstrate potential but require further clinical and industrial validation. Key challenges include microbiological safety, material migration from printing equipment, consumer acceptance, regulatory uncertainty, and manufacturing scalability. The potential integration of AI systems provides opportunities for optimization of formulation, control of the manufacturing process, defect detection, and real-time quality monitoring. Overall, food printing represents a transformative platform for next-generation food manufacturing, provided technological, regulatory, and commercialization challenges are addressed.