page_title: Canning
section_title: French origins
hierarchical_section_title: Canning / History and development of canning / French origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Nicolas Appert, inventor of food canning in 1795, tiré de Les Artisans illustres de Foucaud, anonymous woodcut, circa 1841 Français&#160;: Portrait de Nicolas Appert inventeur en 1795 de la conserve appertisée, tiré de Les Artisans illustres de Foucaud, gravure sur bois anonyme d'époque 1841
context_page_description: Canning is a method of preserving food in which the food contents are processed and sealed in an airtight container. Canning provides a shelf life typically ranging from one to five years, although under specific circumstances it can be much longer. A freeze-dried canned product, such as canned dried lentils, could last as long as 30 years in an edible state. In 1974, samples of canned food from the wreck of the Bertrand, a steamboat that sank in the Missouri River in 1865, were tested by the National Food Processors Association. Although appearance, smell and vitamin content had deteriorated, there was no trace of microbial growth and the 109-year-old food was determined to be still safe to eat.
context_section_description: During the first years of the Napoleonic Wars, the French government offered a hefty cash award of 12,000 francs to any inventor who could devise a cheap and effective method of preserving large amounts of food. The larger armies of the period required increased and regular supplies of quality food. Limited food availability was among the factors limiting military campaigns to the summer and autumn months. In 1809, Nicolas Appert, a French confectioner and brewer, observed that food cooked inside a jar did not spoil unless the seals leaked, and developed a method of sealing food in glass jars. Appert was awarded the prize in 1810 by Count Montelivert, a French minister of the interior. The reason for lack of spoilage was unknown at the time, since it would be another 50 years before Louis Pasteur demonstrated the role of microbes in food spoilage.
  The French Army began experimenting with issuing canned foods to its soldiers, but the slow process of canning foods and the even slower development and transport stages prevented the army from shipping large amounts across the French Empire, and the war ended before the process was perfected.
  Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the canning process was gradually employed in other European countries and in the US.
caption: Nicolas Appert, developer of the canning process
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Pixelmator 3.9.1", "Image DateTime": "2020:12:01 14:12:57", "Image ExifOffset": "152", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "769", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1026"}