Author: Sophia Hinkebein | Major: Food Science | Semester: Fall 2025

This is me posing with my 3D printed whey protein bar in it’s updated circle “cookie” shape.

My name is Sophia Hinkebein, and I am a senior studying Food Science in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas. In the fall of 2025, under the mentorship of Dr. Jamie Baum at the Center for Human Nutrition, I finished working on a project focused on developing 3D-printed protein bars using alternative protein sources. This research has allowed me to build foundational skills in recipe development, a field I hope to pursue in my future career.

With growing interest in sustainable food solutions, alternative proteins like pea and cricket are gaining attention as substitutes for traditional whey protein. At the same time, 3D printing is becoming more prominent in the food industry due to its precision, customizability, and potential to reduce food waste. Despite these advancements, there’s limited research on how alternative proteins behave in 3D printing. In our study, we compared whey, pea, and cricket proteins, focusing on how water content affects printability. We found that alternative proteins require significantly more water than whey to achieve the same level of consistency, due to their higher absorbance capacities and different visual and textural properties.

I connected with Dr. Baum by exploring faculty profiles through the “Select an Honors Thesis Mentor” page on the Bumpers Honors College website. Her research on protein sources and nutritional initiatives immediately stood out to me. As I began working with her, she offered the flexibility to design my own project, guiding me with insight on current industry trends and lab capabilities. My interests led me to focus on 3D printing and protein products, which gradually evolved into examining how alternative proteins interact with 3D printing technology.

This project has been both exciting and challenging. Consumer demand for protein-rich, sustainable foods is growing, and through our testing, we gained important insights into how alternative proteins need to be adjusted for optimal 3D printability. One major challenge was maintaining consistency. Through this research, I’ve learned that you can really only change one variable at a time. Therefore, if we found something that worked better for one protein type, we’d have to see how it affected all the other protein types.

Our base recipe incorporated dates and high-protein oats for their nutritional benefits; however, dates introduced sticky clumps, and the high-protein oats were noticeably coarser than standard oat flour. To address these issues, we transitioned from high-protein oats to regular oat flour and created a separate date-water mixture to ensure more uniform incorporation. While these modifications worked well for cricket and pea protein, whey protein presented the greatest challenge. Its sticky, runnier texture made consistent printing difficult throughout the project.

Over the course of the semester, we also collected color data for both raw and cooked samples, measured moisture content, analyzed nutrient composition (including fiber, fat, and ash), and evaluated antioxidant activity.

Overall, we concluded that whey protein was the least compatible with the ingredients used, despite requiring no additional water. In contrast, cricket protein required 15 grams of added water, while pea protein required the most at 40 grams. Additionally, changing the printed shape from a bar to a circular cookie improved visual consistency and slightly mitigated the printing challenges associated with whey protein.

Dr. Baum offered guidance throughout the project, while I conducted most of the day-to-day testing in collaboration with PhD student Chetanjot Kaur Romana, who is also researching 3D food printing.

Looking ahead, I plan to formally document our findings and develop presentation materials for my defense and potential presentation opportunities in the spring.

With the support of the Honors College Grant, I was able to explore what it is like to develop innovative, impactful products. Taking this project from concept to creation has been incredibly rewarding, and despite the inevitable challenges, the experience strengthened my problem-solving skills and increased my confidence in transforming ideas into tangible outcomes.