Bespoke baked goods are more in demand than ever. Two British entrepreneurs use the direct-to-food printer Eddie Edible Ink Printer to add that personal touch to their delicacies.

The history of Hokey Cokey Cookies began in Wales/UK, mid-October 2019, when Joanna Thomas’ son asked her for themed cookies as gifts for his birthday party guests. What started as a one-off thing developed into her own small business. Meanwhile, bespoke iced cookies can be ordered via her online shop not only for birthdays, weddings, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Christmas or corporate events, but also “paint your own cookies” sets (www.hokeycokeycookies.com).

Ms Thomas previously hand drew the images on the cookies, which is expensive in terms of time and materials: “It takes so long to hand draw individual images on individual cookies, and edible ink pens are not as reliable as expected, as the ink dries, and the pen nibs break too frequently.”

In May 2021, she read about the Eddie Edible Ink Printer in various online forums. Here, she learnt that – unlike other available printers on the market in that size – Eddie prints directly and in full-colour with edible ink onto cookies, candy, white chocolate, biscuits, macarons, marshmallows, smarties-like sweets and much more. The edible ink meets all FDA and EU standards for use as a food additive.

Print objects can be transported to the printer either manually or automatically with the help of a carousel plate. By using the automatic feed option, food objects with a maximum diameter of 89 mm and a height of 20 to 25 mm are possible. For her production, Ms Thomas uses both: the manual feed for different shaped cookies as well as the carousel plate in combination with the automatic mode for large, repetitive orders.

Since she purchased Eddie in September 2021, Ms Thomas’ business has evolved quickly to the next level. At least once a day she uses the direct-to-food printer not only to produce logo cookies for small local and large corporate companies in various quantities but also to print her “paint your own cookies” sets and samples of her new products.

Eddie allows her to accept even last-minute orders. In total she produces around 1,500 cookies per month. This number is increasing rapidly, so much so that she is already considering integrating a second Eddie printer into her business set-up. “The investment in the direct-to-food printer has already amortized”, Ms Thomas is pleased and confirms that for her “speed and volume are the advantages of Eddie, enabling my business to expand in terms of customers and product range.”

Hanane Roche was also faced with the problem of how to produce personalized baked goods, in her case mac-arons, fast and cost-efficiently. Her Essex-based company Colourful Bites has been producing macarons in different flavours and colours for private and corporate events since 2017. Like Hokey Cokey Cookies, the company also runs an online shop, through which customers can order their macaron creations as gift boxes, special shaped cakes or dessert tables (www.colourfulbites.co.uk).

For her bespoke macarons, Ms Roche initially printed on icing sheets, cut the pictures out with a cutting machine and then sticked them on macarons. Sometimes, she wrote on them by hand. Both ways are very time-consuming, involve several steps and are also very expensive in terms of the icing sheets. For example, 15 circles of icing paper with a 50 mm dia-meter cost around EUR 21.50 or EUR 1.43 each, not including wastage. “They never looked so neat or professional as hoped, and the product quality output was not consis-tent,” says Ms Roche, describing the main drawbacks of the previous production process.

Since April 2021, she has also been using the Eddie Edible Ink Printer and can thus offer personalized macarons with logos, images, photos or messages for any occasion. For this, she chooses the printer’s manual feed and a special macaron tray. With the manual feed option, the maximum print area increases to 120 mm x 120 mm compared to the automatic mode. In addition, thicker food items can be printed with a maximum height of 27 mm – perfect for a completely
assembled macaron.

The macaron tray is one of several new food trays designed especially for Eddie by DTM Print, an international solution provider for specialty printing systems, located in Wiesbaden/Germany. By using these trays, production of multiple items in one run – for example up to five macarons – is easy, precise and, depending on the item, faster, too. DTM Print also offers the service to produce trays according to customer specifications.

Since the purchase, Ms Roche has been using Eddie daily, producing 500 macarons or more per month and printing them ten times faster and at a lower cost than before. Printing on a 50 mm diameter macaron now costs less than EUR 0.09, depending on the ink coverage.

“Faster production and good-looking personalized products that everyone loves” are the advantages the creative pastry chef sees in Eddie. “I think the acquisition cost is reasonable, and the printer will bring your product to another – better – level. So, I would definitely recommend it to other bakers, sweets and confectionery manufacturers,” she summarizes her experiences.•