IKEA's menu of the future includes bug meatballs
Hot dogs made of spirulina. Burgers made of bugs. Ice cream made from salad. This is the fast food of the future, people.
Working to create a new menu for IKEA, Copenhagen's "future-living lab" Space 10 has reimagined fast food classics with sustainable, eco-friendly and healthy ingredients. And yes, that includes the meatballs.
Revealed on Space 10’s Medium channel, then presented by creative director Kaave Pour at Iceland’s DesignMarch event, the menu is meant to make people think about new ingredients they’ve probably never tried before (lookin' at you mealworms).
Let's break it down:
First up, the “dogless hot dog,” a new twist on IKEA’s infamous post-shopping treat. This vegetarian hot dog features a bun made with spirulina, which the team says has "more beta carotene than carrots, more chlorophyll than wheatgrass, and 50 times more iron than spinach.” Plus, it apparently has more protein than a “real” hot dog.
Then, there’s the “bug burger.” The patties are made of beetroot, parsnip, potatoes, and mealworms. Yep, no chicken, beef or pork bits and pieces in here, just the larval form of a darkling beetle.
This is what mealworms look like:
The burger is topped with beetroot and blackcurrant ketchup, chive spread, and hydroponic salad mix (which we'll get to in a second).
The “neatball,” a new version of IKEA’s other beloved canteen food, comes in two types: one made with mealworms (the same beetle larva in your burger), and the other with root vegetables — think parsnips, beets and carrots.
It's "designed to get people thinking about reducing their meat consumption, using local produce and trying alternative proteins,” said the Space 10 team’s statement.
This is not the first time Space 10 has played around with IKEA's signature snack. Two years ago, the lab created what they dubbed "Tomorrow's Meatball," which used insects, algae and lab-grown meat.
You need a little greenery in there, so the team developed the “LOKAL Salad,” made from hydroponic microgreens — red veined sorrel, broccoli, tarragon, pea sprouts, pink stem radish, and thyme. The crunch on top is made from day-old bread, to minimize food waste.
Best of all? Dessert. Those hydroponic micro greens from the salad have also been used to create a new kind of ice cream — and no, it's not the other type of hydroponic green ice cream.
You can pick your flavor from fennel, coriander, basil and mint, or blend them all up. The base uses just 60 grams of sugar for a 600 gram batch, and the team have added apple and lemon juice to sweeten it up. Plus, they’ve also made a popsicle, made with hydroponic herbs like woodruff, coriander, Spanish chervil and sorrel.
All five items are still being worked on in the test kitchen, so don’t expect to see them on IKEA’s menu just yet.
Topics Sustainability
Shannon Connellan is Mashable's UK Editor based in London, formerly Mashable's Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives in the Creel House. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror.
