REDWOOD CITY, Calif.– After three years of research and development, Cana Technology is coming out of stealth with the world’s first countertop molecular beverage printer to give people any beverage, anytime, with ultra-low waste.
Cana is helping accelerate decentralized manufacturing by eliminating the supply chain inefficiencies of centralized systems born of the Industrial Revolutions. The company’s molecular beverage printer prototype is the first step in building a technology platform to create all household consumables at the point of consumption, with minimal environmental impact. Based on advances in liquid dispense technologies and flavor chemistry, Cana’s goal is to eliminate the need for bottling, packaging, shipping and other manufacturing waste.
About the size of a toaster oven, Cana’s molecular beverage printer produces thousands of beverages – from juice to coffee to hard seltzers to cocktails. Cana’s prototype also enables infinite sophisticated variations, such as high-vitamin post-workout recovery drinks, low-alcohol mimosas or low-sugar iced teas. From sugar and alcohol levels to portion size and vitamins, consumers can customize their beverage their way.
The $2 trillion global beverage industry uses hundreds of trillions of liters of water, emits 543 million metric tons of CO2, and fuels the global trash crisis with more than 400 billion single-use plastic containers every year. While most beverages are 90%+ water and <2% of the volume of a beverage contains all the compounds that differentiate that beverage, Cana’s technology can, by reducing the number of compounds needed to make a beverage, ship them direct to the home, and enable infinite beverage printing options.
“The food and beverage industry needs to be reimagined so that the world can escape carbon-intensive, trash-generating, 20th century centralized systems of production,” said Cana CEO Matt Mahar, who previously led teams for Vivint Smart Home and Nike. “Our vision at Cana is to make the global beverage industry sustainable with molecular printers in every home, so people can get any drink they want, anytime they want – without torching the planet.”
Cana plans to double its headcount in 2022 as it ramps towards commercial launch. The company is actively recruiting additional team members across hardware engineering, software engineering, embedded software, creative development, and operations.
