Nicolas Appert

On 30th January, Napoleon’s Minister of Interior De Montalivet, rewarded Nicolas Appert for his invention which allowed preserving food in a glass jar for a long time. The idea for canned food was born!

Prior to that, back in the 1700s, food was preserved thanks to either the smoking process, adding salt or sugar, alcohol or vinegar… Nicolas Appert was sixty years ahead of Louis Pasteur in thinking that heat killed bacteria!

Napoleon’s Minister saw how crucial this invention would be for both the population and the army! The inventor had the choice of either patenting the process or receiving a prize of 12,000 Francs and offering his invention to the benefit of mankind. Which he did.

A few years later, his invention was copied and patented by two British men who replaced the glass jar with a tin can…

Recognition came from the U.S. where the « Chicago Institute of Food Technologists » created the annual « Nicolas Appert Award » in 1942.