Hopper

A hopper is a necessary nutrient paste dispenser accessory that holds raw food for the NPD. At least one must be built next to the NPD for the machine to work, and hoppers will only work when placed next to a NPD. The hopper mouse indicator will turn from red to green to indicate proper placement.

Acquisition

It is built with 15 Steel in 300 ticks (5 secs) after the research Nutrient Paste has been completed.

Minor bug: Unbutchered corpses (of any type!) will be consumed by the machine, and only a single meal will be produced, if a hopper is built on top of them. The body (with apparel) will disappear without trace. Make sure to clear any space for a new hopper if you do not want this to happen.

Similar to the above, the machine will consume any type of food (except hay), including all biological corpses and kibble, if the food happens to be dropped on top of an existing hopper.

Usage

Hoppers can be installed all around the nutrient dispenser, excepting corners. As such, a total of 14 hoppers could service a single nutrient paste dispenser, resulting in a total amount of 1,050 foodstuffs being available for processing through the dispenser.

Hoppers are a specialized type of Stockpile Zone for foodstuffs only. Once a hopper is selected, you can click the "Storage" tab which opens a menu where you can set the priority and resources of choice, similar to any zone.

A single hopper can only hold one type of food at a time, max capacity 75 units, so multiple hoppers may be desirable, and at least 2 are recommended.* Pawns with hauling jobs will treat the hoppers no differently from any other "storage zone", and cooks may take raw food from them in order to cook meals.

(* For example, if you butcher a rat, a squirrel and a hare, and have harvested 3 berry bushes, only a food from one of them can be placed in a single hopper, limiting that to a couple dozen total, and that will need to be emptied before more of a different foodstuff can be added. Having multiple hoppers allows small stacks of foodstuff to be consumed by the machine, which has no problem mixing sources from different hoppers.)

Since hoppers cannot be reinstalled but only deconstructed, it may be best to build the dispenser first and then add the hopper(s).

When you build a NPD, the game will notify that a hopper is needed
Hopper storage menu to select ingredients
Hopper mouse indicator will turn from red to green for correct placement and colonists will pick NP meals from the dispenser