The First World War saw a boom in the demand for preserved food that fed through into the inter- and post-war years when canned food became staples in the kitchen. Self-opening cans that did not require a can opener had been a preoccupation of inventors for years, and in Ermal Fraze obtained a patent for a ring pull for beer cans.
The innovation makes it easier and quicker to open cans, especially for those with limited mobility. Around The supplier in question was Stephan Goldner, who had won the Admiralty contract in by undercutting all rivals, thanks to cheap labour working at his meat factory in what is now Romania.
That contract grew significantly in when the Admiralty introduced preserved meat as a general ration one day a week. The following year complaints began to trickle in from victualling yards in the UK and from British seamen around the world that other parts of animals were being found in canned meat. Despite this, Goldner was awarded another contract in , with a warning that his meat needed to be genuine.
In order to meet the demand, he asked if he could increase the size of the cans, but he didn't cook the meat sufficiently. A government select committee was appointed to investigate and questions were asked in the Commons. There was a danger that this bad publicity might put people off canned food for good, a threat that still lingered 10 years later. Writing in Victorian London in , the doctor and writer Andrew Wynter said: "It does seem suicidal folly on the part of the public to conceive a prejudice against a discovery which is of great public importance in a hygienic point of view, and which has been attested and proved.
Goldner was banned from ever supplying the Navy again. It was also revealed that he had supplied the meat to Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition that perished in the Arctic in mysterious circumstances in Lady Franklin launched five ships in search of her husband, leaving Fortnum cans on the ice in the desperate hope that he would find them. In total more than 50 expeditions joined the search. Bodies eventually recovered were found to have a high lead content and to this day, many people believe the crew members were poisoned by leaking lead in their poorly soldered tin cans.
More recent research suggests the canned food supplied to Franklin was not acidic enough for that to happen and the lead was more likely to have come from the internal pipe system on the ships. Now many also believed that it caused food poisoning. Housewives wanted recognisable cuts of meat, she says, not flavourless, overcooked blocks of meat. Writer Anthony Trollope bought Australian canned meat for his servants and described it as "utterly tasteless".
A campaign got under way to promote the nutritional benefits of canned food, with advertisements appearing in the popular press and positive reviews from the Great Exhibition in London's Hyde Park. These messages struck a chord at a time when the growing urban populations in Europe and the US were finding a voice through trade unions and co-operative societies, and demanding better food.
And the first canned food to penetrate the family budget came just in time to salvage the tin can's reputation. By , the UK was importing 16 million lb of canned meat, as industries sprang up around the globe, capitalising on the railways, roads and canals that were making the planet more connected than ever before. In the US, Thomas Kensett and Ezra Daggett had patented the use of tin plate in and started selling canned oysters, fruits, meats and vegetables in New York.
But it was the Civil War decades later that really kickstarted the industry, increasing output six-fold. Mechanisation of can-making arrived in the s and another major breakthrough came in with the arrival of "double seaming" which, according to Gordon Robertson, a food packaging consultant in Queensland, "made it possible to develop high-speed equipment for the making, filling and closing of these cans".
Brands like Bovril and Heinz capitalised on these and other technological developments that all led to a faster and more efficient means of canning.
Tinned food - including so-called bully beef - was introduced as an emergency Army ration in the Boer War, with Bovril the main supplier. It became a mainstay of the British Army right up until the Falklands War in , when the field rations consisted almost exclusively of tinned products, plus some sachets. But three years later pouches, which were lighter and easier to pack, open and prepare, replaced cans. Simon Naylor, a historical geographer at the University of Exeter, says the can enabled the British to tighten its grip on the Empire and it came to embody imperial strength.
The slogan "Empire Buying Begins At Home" became the hallmark of cans under a new national mark scheme introduced in , he notes. Canned food did help to maintain the empire, to an extent, says Philip Dodd of the National Army Museum, because it helped morale to have "British" food in the far-flung outposts.
But while the can was making strides, the can opener wasn't. And the Fortnum and Mason catalogue included instructions on how to cut tins with a knife. The first tin opener was designed in the s, but it didn't become a staple of household drawers until a second serrated wheel was added in By that time, the US was the biggest producer of canned food.
In Iowa, there were vegetable canneries, in Chicago meat, while shrimp was canned in New Orleans, peas in Wisconsin and pineapples in Hawaii. Orange and grapefruit juice led a citrus boom in Florida. The importance of canned food as a central part of the US food economy was further underlined when in 12 months in , one of President Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal Programs delivered million pounds of food to needy people in 30 states, much of it canned beef.
American success was mirrored elsewhere on a smaller scale. South America and Australia had a ready supply of meat but before canning, there was no means to transport it overseas to market. By the end of the 19th Century, some of the world's largest canneries could be found on the coasts of South America. This boom among producers in the US and elsewhere meant that European households were experiencing some entirely new foods.
The first taste of corned beef was due to US imports to the UK, says food historian Liz Calvert Smith, where peaches and tropical fruits were also widely eaten for the first time.
And tins gave many people who lived inland the first chance to taste sardines which, along with pilchards, were affordable. The tin can was an important part of the shift from agricultural to industrial revolution, says food blogger Sue Davies, allowing food to be harvested in season and eaten out of season. And agriculture had to respond to this. After World War I , US food production increased dramatically through intensified planting and the introduction of fossil-fuelled traction power, chemical fertilisers and synthetic pesticides.
This was partly an attempt to meet the widespread civilian adoption of canned food, says Selcuk Balamir, a PhD fellow at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, but it put power in the hands of giant agricultural-industrial companies. Can seam inspection — frequently asked questions Knowledgebase. How to measure a double seam Knowledgebase. Double seaming process guide Knowledgebase. Displaying 1 - 10 of results 1 2 3 … 39 Next ».
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