EDIBLE HOLOGRAPHY. SEE IT. EAT IT. 

You are about to eat a sold-in-the-store, candy-coated apple. Loni Anderson suddenly appears, apparently right out of the apple. Naturally, you can't wait to bite into it. Think this might increase sales?

"Edible holography" is the newest hottest marketing ploy to hit the confectionery counter. It won't stop there. Applications are endless. Holography will eventually appear on cookies, cakes and cereals, seasonal chocolates and child-oriented candies. Even that isn't the end. A zillion other uses will be found for this innovative idea by hungry entrepreneurs as soon as the first products hit the marketplace. Holographs, which you may have seen earlier on the cover of National Geographic magazine or a Rolling Stones album, are about to appear on grocery shelves within months. The holographs are produced by molding a layer of imperceptible microscopic ridges directly on and incorporating the regular ingredients of the particular product itself. Light striking these tiny -- just one or two microns in depth -- surface ridges is diffracted, creating vivid colors and shapes which appear to move and float within the food itself.

The process itself fits in with modern awareness and tastes. It uses no dyes, pigments, chemicals or other additives. With this process, real not artificial "color" is not added, but is extracted from the "pure" visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and appears in or over your cake or other product utilizing the Dimensional Food technique. The technology creates the color from a physical rather than a chemical basis. The same technique allows animation and realistic three-dimensional illusions without affecting the product in any other way. According to Eric Begleiter, founder of Dimensional Foods and a food imaging inventor (new occupation), holographing a product affects neither the taste, nor texture or "mouthfeel" of the product. Begleiter thinks "This process could become a widespread replacement for other methods of food coloring and decoration".

According to Dimensional Foods this is the world's first process for making edible holograms. The patented process allows manufacturers for the first time to produce vivid, three-dimensional images directly on the surface of many foods and candies. For example, it's Mother's Day and your mother is a chocaholic. Why not combine a Black Forest cake with roses? The chocolate surface of the cake will be molded with the microscopic ridges mentioned and "presto" when the light is right a bouquet of roses appears as though hovering just over the cake! All memories of your childish pranks will vanish. She will be enthralled. There's more, imagine: Valentine's Day, the Fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas, and birthdays. How about a cake with a threedimensional animation of the Wright Brothers take-off at Kitty Hawk, especially for flying enthusiasts. Think of the day you tell your kids they're going to Disneyland, and confirm it with lollipops bearing Mickey's logo -- and he's REAL! Another process allows colors and images to be encapsulated inside transparent materials, so Mickey moves when held up to the light. One product being developed is "Rainbow Sparkles" ... granulated particles with flecks of brilliant highlights which like diamonds sparkle with all the hues of the rainbow. When applied to the surface of foods, the Rainbow Sparkles, while themselves invisible, cause the food to sparkle in the light. Candy coins that flick from heads to tails are also possible with this process. Talk about virtual reality.

Kids, and probably adults too, will find this technique intriguing. Holograms change the color of the product and appear threedimensional. It'll be like watching your food and eating it too. This is really "playing with your food".

Dimensional Foods is also developing methods for embossing compressed tablets with holographic colors and images. These images would represent a new means of differentiating brand-name products from competitors and generics. It could also possibly be a method to prevent product tampering as any break in the hologram would be vividly apparent.

Dimensional Foods does not manufacture any products themselves. Their business is licensing this technology for appropriate applications. The confection market is in the $8 billion range, cookies are a $3.5 billion business and the pharmaceutical market is worth $25 billion. Dimensional say they have obtained a broad, pioneering patent covering ingredients, manufacturing processes and products used or created in connection with their technology. They claim the process is competitive with other decorative techniques for candies and foods and that preliminary tests show excellent durability under standard shipping and storage conditions. Somewhere, there is a big market for this process. More information: Eric Begleiter, President, Dimensional Foods Corp., 8 Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, MA 02109. Phone: 617/227-2380

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