The earliest cans were made of glass bottles with cork and wire tightly plugged into the bottle mouth. At the end of the 18th century, the French general Napoleon led his troops to fight in all directions. Because the battle front was too long, a large amount of food would rot and deteriorate after being transported to the front. He hoped to solve the problem of food storage during the war march, so he offered a huge reward of 12,000 francs to anyone who could He was awarded this huge sum of money for inventing technology and equipment to prevent food from spoiling.
Many scientists in France were thinking hard about this. At that time, there was a chef named Nicolas Appert (1749-1841), who worked in sauerkraut factories, wineries, candy shops and restaurants. Worker. When he was selling fruit pulp, wine and other foods, he found that some foods tended to go bad, while others did not go bad easily. He also accidentally discovered that food sealed in glass containers would not deteriorate easily if properly heated, and he was greatly inspired by this. Therefore, Appel responded to the public reward and conducted specialized research on food preservation methods.
After ten years of arduous research, he finally succeeded in 1804. He processes the food, puts it into jars, puts it all in a boiling water pot, heats it for 30-60 minutes, then plugs it tightly with a cork while it's still hot, and then reinforces it with thread or seals it with wax. This technology is used in It was patented and made public in 1810. In this way, food can be preserved for a longer period of time without deterioration. This was the prototype of modern canning.
Appel received a bonus from Napoleon and opened a factory to provide food for the French army. Shortly after the advent of Appel's glass can, the British Peter Durand developed a tin can made of thin tin iron and obtained a patent in the UK. This patent was later used by Hall and Gansu. Acquired by Gamble and Donkin. It is the ancestor of the iron cans commonly used today.
In 1862, French biologist Pasteur published a paper stating that food spoilage is caused by bacteria. Therefore, canning factories use steam sterilization technology to make canned food reach absolute sterility standards. Today's aluminum foil packaging cans were born in the United States in the 20th century.