Appert invents canning

Name: Appert invents canning
Start: 1810
Location: Massy, near Paris

1810 · Massy, near Paris · Europe · Science

A confectioner wins Napoleon’s prize for preserving food

Appert invents canning — Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

France offered 12,000 francs for a way to preserve food for its army and navy. In 1810 the confectioner Nicolas Appert won it by heating food in sealed bottles, without knowing why it kept.

State: First French Empire, First French Empire

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century

Did you know

Canned food was invented nearly half a century before the can opener. Early tins were opened with a hammer and chisel, or a bayonet; dedicated openers arrived only in the 1850s. Share →

The inventor of canning never knew why it worked. Appert simply heated sealed bottles; the explanation, that heat kills microbes, came from Pasteur only in the 1860s, half a century later. Share →

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