A home appliance that grows the ingredients for a healthy meal within a week from plant cells is no longer science fiction. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland's first 3D-printed CellPod prototype is already producing harvests.

VTT's plant biotechnology research scientists have the vision of developing a commercially available home appliance that makes it possible to grow fresh food in a new way. Growing plant cells in a bioreactor is not a new idea as such, but new technologies are enabling the development of a plant cell incubator for home use that yields a harvest in a quick turnaround time.

The CellPod is an appliance that resembles a design lamp and is suitable for keeping on a kitchen table. Image credit: VTT. "Urbanization and the environmental burden caused by agriculture are creating the need to develop new ways of producing food—CellPod is one of them. It may soon offer consumers a new and exciting way of producing local food in their own homes," says research scientist Lauri Reuter.

The idea of the CellPod concept is based on growing the undifferentiated cells of a plant rather than a whole plant. In other words, only the "best" parts of a plant are cultivated. These cells contain the plant's entire genetic potential, so they are capable of producing the same healthy compounds—such as antioxidants and vitamins—as the whole plant.

The first CellPod prototype is an appliance that resembles a design lamp and is suitable for keeping on a kitchen table. So far, the prototype has been used to grow Arctic bramble cells, cloudberry cells and stone bramble cells from VTT's culture collection.

Additionally, the bioreactor enables the production of healthy food from plants other than traditional food crops, such as birch. The development of tailored cell lines is also a possibility, VTT says, in which case nutritional characteristics can be developed according to need.

VTT is in the process of developing different product ideas in collaboration with consumers, with the aim of commercializing the concept.