Imagine 300 years ago, trying to travel across the country with food supplies. The horse drawn carriage, no refrigeration or cooling capacity, the bugs all around trying to figure out what is in the bag; it would be a disaster. Actually, this is exactly how it was up until the 18th century, when canning was invented.
The Challenge
In the late 1700’s Napoleon Bonaparte understood that the performance of his troops was directly proportional to the fullness of their bellies. Unfortunately, the situation described above was the norm back in that day, so a challenge was issued. In 1795, Napoleon offered a cash prize of 12,000 Francs to anyone who could come up with a way to package and preserve food for his military forces.
At this point, the mad dash to become the first to packaged food started. It wasn’t until 1809 that a man by the name of Nicolas Appert discovered the rudimentary form of canning. He figured out that food, placed in a glass bottle and heated up, would have a much higher success rate of preserving than any other means at that time. Nicolas won the cash prize.
The Problem and Solution
However, a few years later in 1810, an Englishman named Peter Durand received the first patent for canning with his pottery, glass and tinplated iron use in the canning process. In 1818, Durand finally introduced his all-tin-can in
