The tin – so much more than just food packaging

The invention of tinned food

With an average annual salary of 500 francs, the 12,000 francs that had been awarded by Napoleon Bonaparte were a considerable sum that Nicolas Appert did not want to miss. Nicolas Appert was a Parisian chef and confectioner, who turned away from his learned craft in 1796 and devoted his time exclusively to the research and invention of methods for food preservation.

Appert had the idea of heating and thus preserving food in airtightly sealable glass containers – a process known in German as "Einkochen" or "Einwecken" ("bottling/preserving"). After years of tinkering, Appert came to the following conclusion: he filled prepared food into discarded champagne bottles and sealed them with burnt lime and cheese – a technique that worked! After the successful testing by the French Navy, Appert received the reward of 12,000 francs in 1810. As early as 1804, Appert, convinced of his invention, had opened the world's first cannery. He wrote a treatise on his invention, which you can read here.

Sturdy sheet metal instead of fragile glass

However, it soon turned out that glass as a material was not ideally suited for transport and field use due to its fragility - the solution to the problem followed in 1810 in England: the British merchant Peter Durand patented his implementation of Appert's idea with tin containers instead of glass containers. From 1813, the tin can then went into mass production.

The shape follows the print. Why cans are round and not square

But why is the can actually round? One might think that a square can would be much more practical and space-saving. To ensure that the food in canned food cans actually remains stable for a longer period of time, it is mandatory to heat the filled and closed container. The pressure generated by this process, which – as we know from the round balloon – spreads evenly, would cause a square tin can to become round anyways. Therefore, they are produced in the same cylindrical shape.

300 billion cans per year – the unimaginable scale of industrial mass production

Since the late 19th century, the tin can has been produced in industrial mass production. At the turn of the 20th century, 700,000 tinplate cans were produced annually in the USA alone. Worldwide, the figure was already 300 billion in 2017, and the trend is rising. In 2019, 4 billion cans were sold in Germany alone.

Victory march in private households

With the advent of industrial mass production, the use of cans in private households also increased. In the 1950s, the tin finally began its triumphant march in domestic kitchens. International specialties came to Germany carefully packaged and sterilised in cans from all over the world. The beverage industry also adopted the can and filled the practical tin containers with lemonade and beer.

But how did this real can boom come about?

The dawning economic miracle of the 1950s helped many people all over the western world achieve new prosperity and allowed them to purchase preserved food from faraway countries:

Exotic fruit and vegetables could be packaged locally, preserved and shipped to the domestic supermarket. The long transport time was no longer a health problem due to the preservation and was also financially manageable due to the higher purchasing power of private households.

The experiences of the Second World War – including food shortages, hunger and loss – have certainly also contributed to the triumph of canned food and promoted the desire for food that is always available, storable in the long term and easily transportable.

Necessity is the mother of invention

However, the can is not only a practical and helpful food storage. Not only did it supply armies on their campaigns or soothe the (post-)war generation traumatised by hunger, food shortages and spoilage: the emptied tin can can also be diverted from its intended use and has already helped out of numerous emergencies.

Children in particular were also affected by the period of deprivation during and after the Second World War: they lacked not only food and clothing, but also toys. A father from Braunschweig therefore used an American can and the substructure of an old Märklin railway to build a railway car for his son to play with. The embossed details imitate steel posts, wooden boards and sliding doors.

The toy shows equally how tough the time was, but also great creativity and the will to create something positive in a difficult time.

And today?

The Second World War has passed more than 70 years ago, but to this day the tin is indispensable in many areas of our lives: in addition to the pantry – not only in times of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic – we now find the tin in numerous playrooms, at almost every children's birthday party and even in the art temples of this world.

Andy Warhol dedicated his own world-famous series of prints to preserved canned soup, whose works are exhibited in important museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

And to this day, no childhood is complete without can stilts and telephones, hardly any children's birthday party takes place without the loud clatter of cans being thrown.