Canning

Like refrigeration, invented a year earlier, this is another way to preserve food. All the sudden items available only for a certain portion of the year could be reliably preserved for far longer. This lowered the cost and increased the availability of food.

Appert is a Frenchman who perfected caning. Napoleon needed a consistent way to feed his far-flung troops and Appert’s method, revealed in 1806, worked. For his effort, he was awarded 12,000 francs. In 1811, Appert published a book describing his caning methods.  Appert built a canning factory but it soon burnt down, in 1814, during the Napoleonic wars.

In 1810, Peter Durand ー a Frenchman living in England ー extended Durand’s methods to tin cans. Canned foods were not popular until 1855 when Englishman Robert Yeates invented the can opener (before then cans were opened with chisels).

In Nov. 1858, American John Mason patented a glass jar with a metal lid suitable for canning, the Mason Jar. It is unclear how, but Frank Ball and his brothers acquired rights to the patent and made an automatic jar making machine; they sold many jars. Mason died poor. Ball would eventually spin off the jar-making operation but exists to this day as Ball Corporation, a Fortune 500 company with $11B in revenue.