Everything you need to know about the history of the humble tin can
Kitchen cupboards across the country are well-stocked with trusty but often neglected tin cans. And few realise the remarkable history of these groundbreaking containers – a revolutionary innovation pioneered alongside the smoke and dark chimneys of the Industrial Revolution, with a story that has spanned centuries and continents.
Tin cans are in fact made mostly out of steel, which has then been covered with a thin coating of tin. They boast incredible preservation abilities; canned food survived nuclear bombing at American testing sites in the 1950s.
But the tin can possesses yet another kind of preservation skill, having survived the invention of fridges, ready-meals and takeaways to remain as popular as ever in the 21st century.
First thought up by an opportunistic French designer and a British merchant, the tin can has transformed every environment its reached; from battlefields to Arctic waters, to the humble kitchen counter. Here’s a look back at the tin can through the decades…
1810
Without the invention of the tin can, many staple British foods would never have hit the shelves
A public appeal by Napoleon in 1795 is where the story of the tin can began. The military leader offered a 12,000 Franc prize to anyone who could devise a way to keep food fresh for French soldiers, a sum finally claimed in 1810 when Nicolas Appert designed a glass container that could sterilise food.
The invention made Appert a rich man, and he published The Book For All Households to share his discovery. The same year, British merchant Peter Durand received a patent for his idea of using a tin can, rather than glass, to keep food fresh.
By 1813, the first factory producing tin cans was established in England, and Durand introduced his idea to America before the decade was out. Oysters and meat were sold in cans on the street markets of New York, and production accelerated across Europe during the height of the Industrial Revolution.
1845
Explorer FJ Hooper eating a can of baked beans
Tinned produce quickly became a staple for any long or potentially perilous expedition, allowing explorers to stock up for months or years at sea. But some believe the tin can lies behind the mystery of a doomed British voyage of the Arctic, and one of the greatest unsolved puzzles of the Age of Discovery.
Three years’ worth of food was packed onto Sir John Franklin’s ships, as he led a crew through the Northwest Passage, between Canada and the Arctic. The men never returned; recovery of their bodies and reports of cannibalism in their last days appalled the Victorian public.
And now it’s generally accepted that the blame lay with poorly-created tin cans, which afflicted the crew with lead poisoning. Several of the skeletons recovered revealed dangerously high levels of lead – but with many crew members never found, the mystery could never be conclusively solved.
Fortunately, a fate like this was not met later on by explorer FJ Hooper, who was part of the team that discovered Captain Scott’s body after his doomed trip to the South Pole. Hooper was photographed eating a can of Heinz baked beans with a pair of fur mittens, in a crafty piece of advertising around 1910-1912.
1870
The invention of the tin opener came 60 years after the tin can itself
Remarkably, tin cans was used for more than 60 years before anyone invented an efficient way to open them. Prior to 1870, long before the days of health and safety regulations, manufacturers recommended consumers use a hammer and chisel to get into their tins.
That changed when American inventor William Lyman patented an opener with a rotating wheel to cut open the tin, the first incarnation of the openers we use today.
The creation led to an increase in the popularity of the tin can, though it was eventually usurped in 1925 by a more efficient rotating-wheel design, which has survived to this day.
1901
An 1896 advertisement for Heinz Baked Beans, which quickly became Britain’s highest-selling canned product
The first ever tin of Heinz Baked Beans in the UK was sold from a store in London at the start of the 20th century. The product, bearing its famous ’57 Varieties’ slogan, which founder Henry Heinz had picked out of thin air, soon became a household favourite.
Baked Beans take their name from their unique cooking process; raw beans and sauce are sealed inside a can first, and then placed inside pressure cookers.
The trusty favourite led the shift of canned food from the battlefield to the kitchen, a trend which halved the time taken to prepare a family meal. From there, tinned food exploded in popularity, with soup, sardines and Spam all jumping aboard the culinary craze.
1959
The idea for the pull-tab can opener came to Ermal Fraze while he was enjoying a family picnic
Tin cans were an essential element of home life throughout the 20th century, but the complicated opening method still proved frustrating. Then, in 1959, an American inventor went on a family picnic and came up with the idea which would give the can a new lease of life.
Having to crack his cans on a car bumper after leaving his opener at home, Ermal Fraze decided to develop an easier method to get into the container. His answer was the pull-tab; a metal lever on the can’s lid which allowed consumers to ditch the separate can opener.
The innovation was quickly claimed by beer and soft drink makers. It eventually made its way to canned food, allowing home cooks to crack into their food without having to rummage through their kitchen looking for a tin opener.
2017
Tomato soup cans at the Heinz factory in Wigan, which produces over one billion cans a year
Today, a staggering one-and-a-half-million cans of Heinz Baked Beans are sold in the UK every day, according to the company; that means over a thousand fly off the shelves every minute.
Earlier this year, a remarkable discovery demonstrated the preservation power of the can. A fruitcake stored in a tin, believed to be from Robert Falcon Scott’s doomed 1910 Terra Nova expedition, was recovered and found to be edible – although the tin itself had gone a bit rusty.
The tin can has been the source of groundbreaking innovation and has survived numerous food revolutions – so perhaps we should pause for a moment before shoving our canned goods to the back of the cupboard!
The Press Association
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