Americans buy food in jars, cans, boxes, cartons, and plastic containers. Yet they seldom think of the vast food industry and the researchers who develop the means to deliver tasty, nutritious, convenient, and safe foods.
Food processing has a long history.
For thousands of years people salted, dried, smoked, pickled, and chilled their foods. Canned and frozen foods are a fairly recent development. Dried and freeze-dried foods are now common. Researchers over the years have found new and better ways to process, package, and preserve foods from the time of the harvest to the time they go on the table. The food processing industry is vital to the economy.