Nicolas Appert: Inventor and Manufacturer

Abstract

This article summarizes the life and work of Nicolas Appert, a famous French inventor and manufacturer. He devoted his life to the empirical development of the appertization process. His main objective was to offer to consumers, especially seamen, preserved foodstuff still having the appearance and properties of fresh fruit and vegetables. The inventor was in debt most of his life even though his discovery gave birth to a flourishing industry. This paper focuses on the main events in Appert's life and on the appertization process as described by Appert himself.

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Nicolas Appert: Inventor and Manufacturer
Rebeca Garcia
a
; Jean Adrian
a
a
Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Biochimie Industrielle et Agroalimentaire, Paris, France
Online Publication Date: 01 April 2009
To cite this Article Garcia, Rebeca and Adrian, Jean(2009)'Nicolas Appert: Inventor and Manufacturer',Food Reviews
International,25:2,115 — 125
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115
Food Reviews International, 25:115–125, 2009
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 8755-9129 print / 1525-6103 online
DOI: 10.1080/87559120802682656
LFRI8755-91291525-6103Food Reviews International, Vol. 25, No. 2, Jan 2009: pp. 0–0Food Reviews International
Nicolas Appert: Inventor and Manufacturer
Nicolas AppertGarcia and Adrian
REBECA GARCIA AND JEAN ADRIAN
Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Biochimie Industrielle et Agro-
alimentaire, Paris, France
This article summarizes the life and work of Nicolas Appert, a famous French inventor
and manufacturer. He devoted his life to the empirical development of the appertiza-
tion process. His main objective was to offer to consumers, especially seamen,
preserved foodstuff still having the appearance and properties of fresh fruit and
vegetables. The inventor was in debt most of his life even though his discovery gave
birth to a flourishing industry. This paper focuses on the main events in Appert’s life
and on the appertization process as described by Appert himself.
Keywords N. Appert, appertization process, N. Appert biography
Introduction
Sometimes a prominent figure gives his name to a process or a brand that becomes a common
noun. That’s what happened for example when the firm Anderson and Co, established in
Cleveland, marketed in the 19
th
century a press registered trade mark “Expeller.” Progres-
sively, the apparatus was adopted by the oil industry and its success was universal, such that
expeller is nowadays used as a common name. Another typical example is pasteurization, a
process named after the French chemist Louis Pasteur. He was not the inventor of the process
but he established its scientific basis. The appertization process, which defines the food
sterilization process by a heat treatment, has a similar origin. It was empirically developed by
Nicolas Appert several decades before the discovery of microbiology.
It is worth to relate the stormy life and interesting work of this manufacturer. Appert,
the inventor, was in debt most of his life even though his discovery gave birth to a
flourishing industry, leading to substantial financial benefits.
The Man and His Life
As detailed in a remarkable biography,
(1)
Nicolas Appert was born in Chalons en
Champagne (France) on November 17
th
, 1749. He was the 9
th
child of a family of 11. His
parents held a flourishing 20-bedroom hostelry called “Le Cheval Blanc,” located in the
town centre. During his youth, Appert worked in the family business; then, at the age of
20, he opened a brewery with one of his brothers. After that, he took service with a
German nobleman, the Prince Palatin, duc de Deux Ponts, where he held the position of
head cook in the palace for 13 years. According to a description given in a passport (pass-
port delivered on December 12, 1794 by the Département de la Seine), he was 1.68 m tall
Address correspondence to Rebeca Garcia, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Chaire
de Biochimie Industrielle et Agro-alimentaire, UMR 1211 Agroparistech / Cnam / INRA SCALE,
292, rue Saint Martin, 75141 Paris cedex 03, France. E-mail: rebeca.garcia@cnam.fr
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116 Garcia and Adrian
with chestnut brown hair, a large forehead, an oval face with spots of smallpox, blue eyes,
and a thin nose (Figure 1).
At the age of 34, he opened a confectionery manufacturing shop in the heart of Paris,
rue des Lombards, near the church Saint Nicolas des Champs. Later, he added a wholesale
grocery to the location. At the same period, he married another manufacturer’s daughter,
Elisabeth Benoist, who bore him three daughters and a son.
From the beginning of the revolutionary disorders in June/July 1789, Nicolas Appert
took an active part in his district meetings in order to be the spokesman of the lower class.
In 1790, he became president of his district division. Later, he supported the revolutionary
movement on several occasions. He even paid for the complete outfitting of 2 soldiers.
After the revolutionary riots on 10
th
August 1792, he became an officer of his division and
he enlisted 5 workers from his business.
During the criminal trial of the King Louis XVI, he was delegated to stay in the prison
van during the trips between the jail and the revolutionary law court. When the King was
guillotined on January 21, 1793, Appert was also chosen to assist in the execution. He was
then highly involved in military matters when revolutionary France was attacked by the
European nations.
He warned the authorities against suspicious characters suspected of treachery or
intrigue (April 1793). Later, when the revolutionary power perpetrated then its worse
excesses (1793), Appert was considered too moderate, and he became somewhat suspect
for the revolutionists. He was interrogated, his home and workshops were searched, and
he was finally arrested in April 1794. He avoided the deathly guillotine and was totally
discharged when the violent revolutionary government was overthrown in July 1794.
After that, Appert opened a workshop near the city of Paris, in Ivry (Val de Marne,
France), where he produced his first bottled-foodstuffs and sold them in the Parisian shop.
The bottled-foodstuff turned out to be a success and Appert opened a larger manufacturing
facility in Massy, in the south of Paris in order to meet demand. The domain, named “Le
Chateau d’en Haut,” was composed of a dwelling house, 4 workshops and a 4 ha size
Figure 1. Portrait of Nicolas Appert (From J. P. Barbier, 1994 (1) – With permission).
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Nicolas Appert 117
yard. The fruits and vegetables were grown locally and Appert put them into jars: he kept
the control of his production line from beginning to end. The products were easily sold in
France and abroad but the business had a shortcoming because Appert was a very bad
manager. He was bankrupt by February 1806, and he left with very large debts. He then
was allowed to resume his activities but he stayed in debt most of his life.
Napoleon’s defeat provoked Appert’s downfall. First German troops and then English
troops took possession of the manufacturing facility located in Massy and utterly
destroyed it (1814–1815). Appert was then a broken man who took refuge in Paris. He
sold the ruins of his manufacture, mainly to pay his debts. He tried then to set up a new
facility by installing the boiling water baths saved from Massy, in a site free of charge
located in Paris, a hospital named “Les Quinze Vingts.” He was evicted ten years later in
spite of a petition addressed to the “Ministre de l’intérieur” (Home Secretary). He
described the confusion and the bitterness of an old man: “I gave my life to science and to
mankind. You’re taking away the premises I thought ought to be mine. I implore his Grace
to grant a help or financial assistance.”
(1)
The authorities rejected his request and Appert
had to move out the water baths to another site in Paris. At the end of his life, he asked for
the French order “La Légion d’Honneur” but King Louis-Philippe rejected his request.
After this mortifying insult, Appert stopped his professional activities in 1836, at the age
of 87, and he went to Massy to end his life. He was evicted again and died in Paris, alone,
poor at the age of 91 on June 1, 1836. He did receive a religious funeral but was buried in
a grave for the destitute as no money was found for correct obsequies. His grave is lost
now but it would have been fair to engrave a marble tablet with the sentence he depicted
himself with: “I sacrificed so much for mankind . . . all my life.”
(1)
Appert’s Process
Nicolas Appert started his research at the beginning of the French revolution, around
1790. At this time, preserving foodstuff was a crucial problem as natural resources were
often short and raw foods were spoiled during long and risky trips. A good way to increase
the amount of available food was to find a solution for stabilizing part of the harvesting.
Moreover, Appert was cognizant of the imperfections in the methods used for preserving
food at that time: “all the methods used up to now are restricted to two principles. One of
them is based on desiccation, the other one appeals to an exogenous substance, added in
variable amounts, to prevent putrefaction or fermentation processes from taking place.
Desiccation destroys aroma, modifies the flavour, and hardens the fibre tissues. Sugar
partially masks the taste which is supposed to be preserved. Salt gives an unpleasant
acridity, hardens the animal substances which become indigestible and contracts vegetable
parenchyma. Then, when one soak’s the product to remove the salt, only the fiber element
remains; and besides, they are spoiled. Vinegar can only be used to preserve a few
products used as condiments.”
(2)
From these thoughts, Appert devoted his life and fortune to develop a new method for
food preserving, in which the foodstuff will keep its initial flavour and colour qualities.
From that time, it had been his only aim and his contemporaries recognized him for this
endeavour. Appert did not base his experiments on chemistry but on one of a physics
principle: heat. His path was empirical and was based on undeniable facts: in his opinion
“the action of the fire destroys, or at least neutralizes, all the ferment which, in the nature,
modify and deteriorate animals and plant material.”
(2)
According to Parmentier and other experts, Appert did not really invent the process as
they thought homemakers could be doing this already; but Appert’s undeniable talent was
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118 Garcia and Adrian
to develop a precise, detailed and reliable method on a large scale.
(3)
For this, he is consid-
ered as the founding father of food canning.
In his book published in 1810,
(4)
Appert explained first the principles of the process
and then he entered in the details of its execution. He said: “the process consists princi-
pally: first, to enclose in the bottle or jar the substances that one wishes to preserve; sec-
ond, to cork these different vessels with the greatest care because success depends chiefly
on the closing; third, to submit these substances thus enclosed to the action of boiling
water in a water-bath for more or less time according to their nature and in the manner that
I shall indicate for each kind of food; fourth, to remove the bottles from the water-bath at
the time prescribed. In his mind the process was universal: “the principle of which I make
use is unique; it operates in the same way and produces the same effects upon all the food
material with no exception.”
(4)
Then he described all the details of the process. Three points are relevant today: the
sealing of the hand-blown bottles, the nature of the container which evolved with time and
the way of heating.
At the beginning he used glass bottles with large openings and with contractions (with a
ridge extending into the interior of the opening below the cord-line), and glass jars. These big
containers were especially made for his purposes. The bottles and jars were closed with cork
stoppers of 18–20 lines (about 40 mm) in length. Before closing, each cork was compressed
for three quarters of its length, by means of the vise (Figure 2), beginning at the smaller end.
The stopper was then slightly elongated and reduced in size at the end that enters the mouth of
the bottle. A large stopper can enter into an average opening giving a perfect closure after the
action of the heat. The stoppers were finally secured by two crossed wires.
He used this kind of container until he travelled to London in 1814, after Napoleon’s
fall. In London he discovered that metallurgy was more developed than in France and as a
consequence that food can be put into soldered iron cans. He also discovered that steam
was used for cooking food. We actually know for sure that Appert’s process was opera-
tional at the beginning of the next century as sailors tasted Appert’s products in 1803.
(5)
England seemed to have a lead over Appert and most of all the preservation process had
been patented in 1810 by two French men: Philippe de Girard and P. Durand.
(6)
This
patent was only concerned with commercial purposes and not with intellectual property.
(7)
Philippe de Girard was probably a French émigré who settled in England during the
French revolution. Before he left France he could have heard about Appert’s work and as P.
de Girard was a noble man, he could not decently pay for a patent concerned with
commercial purposes. He anyway took advantage of the fact that Appert did not patent his
process; in October 1810, he took out a patent on behalf of a straw man named P. Durand.
This patent did not give Philippe de Girard any priority on Appert and this fact was recog-
nized even by Donkin, the industrialist who exploited the English patent. He recognized
that the process he used came from a foreigner who did not live in England.
(1)
This assess-
ment allows the distinction between the process and the container; the patent taken out by
Durand was concerned with this latter.
Figure 2. Iron vise used to compress and reduced the corks for three quarters of their length (2).
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Nicolas Appert 119
When Appert came back to France, he started to use metallic containers. First he
chose white iron plate but then he opted for wrought sheet iron. The cans were hand made
and were then soldered. In 1820, he shared with another competitor a medal given by the
Société pour l’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale (or SEIN) for the production of
foodstuff preserved in metallic containers. In 1824, he realised a feat of strength: he could
offer 17 kg metallic cans containing corned beef. He then produced smaller cans (2 kg).
The heating method developed by Appert for the foodstuff was the use of a water-
bath. He considered steam cooking only after he had seen it in England. Although he
possessed very big autoclaves (300 and 400 liters), they were only used for tallow melting
and gelatine production. Later, sterilization was done in autoclaves by Appert’s succes-
sors. He also believed that autoclaves could be used for domestic purposes (Figure 3).
Range of Appert’s Products
The canning industry started with the preservation of basic agricultural resources essen-
tially because the technique was very simple. Appert then created a new kind of food
industry when he widened the production to cooked dishes he managed to sterilize. For the
latter, he proceeded in two steps: first, he prepared the dish and partially cooked it; and
then, he bottled it and finish the cooking by putting the jars in a boiling water bath or by sub-
mitting them to steam. The Massy workshop produced an impressive list of canned foods
(Table 1). He also managed to sterilize semi-condensed milk by adding phospholipids (in
the form of egg yolk). According to Appert, after 18 month storage, the milk was as good
as the day it was sterilized. He also sold fresh sour cream, lightly condensed: “five liters of
cream, skimmed carefully from good milk, were concentrated without skimming to four
liters in the water-bath, the skin which had formed on it was removed, so as to strain the
whole through cloth, and put it to cool. After having again removed the skin that had
Figure 3. Scheme of a domestic autoclave for food sterilization, made by N. Appert in March 1823 (2).
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120 Garcia and Adrian
formed in cooling, it was put into half-liter bottles with the ordinary processes, so as to
give it an hour’s boiling in the water-bath.”
(4)
In order to prevent scurvy in the marine troops, he prepared a special kind of
product—he bottled the leaf of a cruciferous plant (Cochleria officinalis) famous for its
anti-scurvy effect. The effects of this plant were to be proved later.
(8)
Welcome by the Authorities and Contemporaries
In 1803, the sea service evaluated 3-month old Appert’s bottles. The appraisement was
very good: “the meat broth is really good . . . the boiled meat is eatable, yellow peas and
garden peas possess the freshness and the flavour of recently harvested vegetables.”
(5)
Appert presented a selection of bottled fruits and vegetables from his manufacture at an
exhibition in Paris, l’Exposition des Produits de l’Industrie Nationale (Table 2) in 1806;
although he did not receive any reward at the exhibition.
In 1809, Appert was still looking for an official recognition for his bottled foodstuff.
He wrote to an institute devoted to the development of industrialization in France (SEIN)
where the most famous scientists of the epoch had a seat. Three of them were chosen to
examine the documents given to SEIN: Antoine Parmentier, first apothecary of Napoleon
armies, Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau and Amédée Buriat. Their report was detailed
and contained a lot of interesting comments, and their conclusion was favourable. The
products made by Appert were tasted by the members of the commission. Here are some
of the conclusions they made: “the meat is soft, its taste is pleasant, the meat broth taste as
good as a freshly prepared one, the milk is more yellow, more tasty and sweeter because it
was condensed, same thing for the whey, garden peas are very good, cherries and apricots
almost keep their savour, raspberry and redcurrant syrups keep their properties.”
(9)
No
Table 1
Catalogue of canned food products manufactured by Appert’s workshops
at Massy, France (2)
Basic Products
–Sorrel, aparagus, asparagus tip, fine garden peas, mean garden peas, wax bean, kidney
beans, artichoke in quarters, whole artichoke, cauliflower, chicory, spinach, tomato
sauce, white currant, red currant, raspberry, cherry, morelle cherry, black currant,
greengage, Mirabelle, nectarine, quince in quarters, apricot in quarters, peach in
quarters, pear in quarters.
–Juice of : white currant, red currant, black currant, blackberry
–Must: sourish, deacidified or clarified
–Semi-condensed milk, whey, cream
Cooked Dishes
–Seasoned garden peas, seasoned rice
–Quenelle of: carp, whiting
–Seasoned eel, seasoned pike, seasoned trout
–Undecut of: young partridge, pheasant, woodcut, quail, teal, poulard, turkey, duck
–Croquette of: turkey, young rabbit
–Various meats: lamb chop, chicken fricassee, mutton tongue, stewed lamp, pork pettitoes,
pork undercut, cushion of veal, meat in jelly, stewing steak, beef steak, meat consommé,
meat broth, egg in bechamelle sauce
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Nicolas Appert 121
digestive or pathological troubles were reported by the experts after the tasting. “A few
tests were made on board: they show that sick members of the crew are quite satisfied with
Appert products. Meat, meat broth, milk, acidic fruits and even anti-scorbutic syrups can
be found among them.”
(9)
Appert asked for assistance from the Ministre de l’Intérieur (Home Secretary) in 1809.
The minister offered him two options: he could patent the process and receive the royalties;
or he could publish completely and circumstantially his preserving process. If he chose the
latter, he would receive a considerable grant of 12, 000 French francs from the French gov-
ernment (as a comparison, in 1840 a professor working in Paris had a 5000 French francs
salary per year). Appert choose the second proposal: “it is more respectable and adapted to
my personality, and more important it is useful for mankind”
(1)
he would have said.
In 1810, he published a proceeding including all the useful data and tips (2). The book
run was 6000 copies and 200 of them were sent to the Ministre de l’Intérieur who gave
one copy to each French subdivision. A second edition was run to 4000 copies in 1811; a
third in 1813; and a fourth in 1831. A German translation was published in 1810 whereas
an English one was available in 1812: the Art of preserving all kinds of animal and
vegetable substances for several years (by M. Appert, translated from French, London).
After the destruction of the manufacturing facility in 1814, and 1815, by the foreign
troops, Appert received a silver medal from the SEIN. He expected financial help but had
to wait until 1824 to receive some support.
Later (1827), the SEIN awarded him a gold medal after an appreciatory report: “this
eminent manufacturer did the nation and the whole world a precious turn. His process was
a great help for the sea service as they could have good and safe food. These products
replaced salted provisions which were unhealthy and responsible for scurvy.”
(1)
Table 2
Shows, prices, medals and subsidies received by Nicolas Appert (1)
Date Event
1806 Exposition des produits de l’Industrie française (Show of products of French
industry Exhibition of cans by Appert (fruits, vegetables, meats and broths)
No reward
1810 Subsidy from the Ministre de l’Intérieur (Home Secretary)
12 000 French francs
a
1816 Silver medal of Société pour l’encouragement de l’industrie nationale
(SEIN) (society for the support of the national industry)
1820 Gold medal of SEIN
1824 Prize of SEIN
2 000 French francs
a
1827 Gold medal of Exposition des produits de l’industrie (Show of Industrial
Products)
1832 Subsidy of the Ministre du Commerce (Secretary for trade)
1836 Government attribution of a life annuity
1200 French francs per year
a
1839 Rappel de la médaille d’or décernée en 1827 (recall of the gold medal
awarded in 1827)
No other medal
a
the daily wages of a worker is 3 French francs.
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122 Garcia and Adrian
Appert’s cans were crowned with success in most of the countries where they were
exported. The efficiency of the process, which was even more appreciated in England than
in France, was reported by several navigators and ship owners. Appert received a lot of
laudatory words which were free but not the financial support he strongly needed.
During the Napoleon period, Appert received correct subsidies but later on, when
King Louis XVIII returned, the situation changed. Peace reduced the army and navy needs
and Appert’s invention seemed less useful. The Authorities did not help him very much:
as an example, in 1832, the Ministre du Commerce only gave him half of the subsidy sug-
gested by the experts (3000 francs instead of 6000 francs). The scientists (members of
SEIN) were the only ones still interested and kept on giving him prizes and medals (in
1816, 1820, 1824, and 1827, see Table 2). Moreover, the Ministre de l’Intérieur did not
support him when he was evicted from the Quinze-vingts hospital in December 1827 and
finally the King refused him the “Légion d’Honneur” distinction (1832). Did the political
sphere remember his involvement during the French Revolution? The sea service was the
only one to support Appert by numerous and laudatory reports. The fourth edition of his
book contains 17 testimonies from admirals and naval officers in favour of his process.
(2)
The success of canned food quickly grew. His cans were sold in Paris, in a shop
located in a very smart area: rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré. Appert’s fame then started to
spread abroad. For example, in 1803, he exported to Saint Petersburg a special order of 60
bottles. Later, he sent 55 bottles to Bavaria’s court. In France, Grimod de la Reynière, a
famous gastronome, became enthusiastic about the invention and wrote a long paper
describing bottled fruit and vegetables which had kept their quality and freshness. He
believed that this invention deserved admiration.
(10,11)
Many newspapers dealt with the new foodstuff produced by Appert, especially in
1810 after his book was published: Le Journal de l’Empire (22 June 1810), Le Journal du
Commerce (22 May 1810), La Gazette de Santé (22 July 1810). In the newspaper Le Journal
de Paris (21 May 1810) the “Ministre de l’Intérieur”, le comte de Montalivet, insisted on
the significant advantages brought by the invention: “travellers will be able to go from one
hemisphere to the other one carrying an excellent meat broth, fresh milk . . . seaman won’t
be afraid anymore of scorbut.” Le Journal du Commerce (28 February 1809) already men-
tioned the beneficial effects of Appert’s products on the seaman’s health. Le Moniteur of 1
September 1810 wrote: “No one before had the talent to succeed in the food preserving.
We are unanimously grateful to the most capable of the philanthropists.”
(1)
All this praise shows the impact of the bottled food, totally new for the consumers.
Appert reached his goal: he developed a method for preserving perishable material with a
long shelf life while keeping its initial organoleptic properties.
Appert’s Work on Yeast and Wine
Appert wanted to prove the validity of his method and thus, he conducted an original dem-
onstration that could have moved science forward in a surprising way.
Here is his account of the experiment: “I took a sample of fresh yeast in a brewery and
put it in 12 bottles that I heated in the water bath as usual. Six months later I opened four
of the bottles and filtered the content in order to separate the beer from the yeast. I wished
then to know if the fermentation ability of the yeast remained intact after the treatment so
I went to see a famous confectioner to have the yeast tested for brioche making but kept
secret the real reason of my approach. I told him I was considering buying the yeast and
wanted to know first if it was good quality. The day after, he told me that the yeast was not
good and that I was misled. In fact, I had the secret satisfaction that my experiment had
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Nicolas Appert 123
worked. Just to be sure, he repeated the experiment with another confectioner and the
result was exactly the same. I was persuaded that heat destroyed the fermentation principle
in a material where it was very active.”
(2)
This anecdote shows Appert’s mental and scientific ability: he was a rigorous man,
very attached to the objective he had fixed in advance. Thus, Appert was very close to dis-
covering that yeast was a living organism and a step in the discovery of microbiology.
Charles Cagniard-Latour (1839), one of his contemporaries, observed yeast under a
microscope and found that it grew during the fermentation and that it was modified by a
heat treatment at 110°C.
(12–15)
The experiment was conducted later by Louis Pasteur in
1857, who confirmed Cagniard-Latour’s conclusions and established the metabolic basis
of alcoholic fermentation in a report published in 1860.
(16)
A wine merchant asked Appert to find a technique to preserve wine during long
journeys. The stake was very important at the time: on the one hand, alcoholic degree was
low in wine and wine making techniques were imperfect, but on the other hand, maritime
trips lasted several months. Appert already conceived that he could adapt his technique
specifically to wine. He corked bottles as usual and placed them in a water bath at 70°C
only because he feared that high temperatures can corrupt the colour of the wine. Part of
the bottles then made a return trip to Saint-Domingue. Two years later, a comparative
tasting was organised: “The superiority of the wine from Saint-Domingue is undeniable,
nothing compares with its lingering fragrance.”
(2)
Appert applied then the method to
samples of beer but with a water bath at 100°C as the heat did not affect the colour of the
product. One year later, the beer was found to be as good as the day of brewing. Appert
concluded that these treatments were particular cases of the universal effect of the heat on
the perishable foodstuff.
(1)
The repeated work made by trial and error permitted Appert to
work out sterilization and pasteurization processes several decades before microbiology
and enzymology were discovered.
Louis Pasteur also stabilised wine with a heat treatment. The first trial he made on the
11
th
of April 1865 was a 30 minutes heating at 63°C
(17)
: the heat treatment will then be
named pasteurization process. He recognizes Appert priority on several occasions
(18,19,20)
but he added that unfortunately Appert process sank into oblivion: “I recognize that this
manufacturer made exactly the same trials as mine . . . He said that his technology was
probably a very simple method to stabilize wine but these data sank into oblivion. Appert
was supposed to have exaggerated his discovery and its applications.”
(18)
However Pasteur
specified the progresses brought by his work that demonstrate the efficiency of the heat
treatment: “Appert affirmed that his process made food preservation possible . . . there is a
big difference between an assertion and a proof.”
(18)
The Scholar’s Theory
Appert gave an explanation of his process. Firstly, the foodstuff must be protected from
the atmosphere but the air inside the bottle does not matter as it is “inactivated” by the
heat. The incubation in a water bath is the other essential factor for perfect foodstuff
preservation. According to Appert, “the action of the heat destroys or at least neutralizes
ferments which usually modify and spoil food.”
(2)
So Appert showed a surprising insight
and the future would give him credit. Louis Gay-Lussac did not share his opinions
(21)
; he
suggested the involvement of oxygen in the stability of the treated foodstuff. For him, the
heat and the oxygen acted jointly to insolubilise the components responsible of the
fermentation. According to Gay-Lussac, the oxygen contained in the hermetically sealed
bottles reacted with organic compounds when heated and cannot induce fermentation or
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124 Garcia and Adrian
putrefaction any more. The other possibility was that oxygen, jointly with heat, made the
compounds responsible for fermentation to coagulate like albumin does. Louis Gay-Lussac
goes on with an explanation where he confuses pure oxygen (the chemical element) and
oxygen as an air component and micro-organism carrier.
Later (1817), Claude Bertholet, another chemist, adopted N. Appert’s point of view:
“heat acts directly on the putrefaction factors.”
(1)
Today, it seems advisable to pay homage
to these scientists for the study of a mechanism that was incomprehensible at a time when
microbiology was still unknown.
The Future of Appert’s Process
While Appert was developing his heating process, Dizzé, another inventor, was testing the
drying of meat on a large scale (probably for commercial purposes). He also wanted to
produce food available for anybody who could not have fresh food. Samples of dried meat
were stocked for three years in wood boxes. The scholars Parmentier, Nicolas Deyeux and
Antoine-François de Fourcroy were in charge of examining the samples: the meat was in a
perfect state but the sensory tests were disappointing.
(22)
The project was stopped and
Appert’s process was the only one developed. Canning factories were created in France,
especially in the ports in order to supply the marines with foodstuffs that can prevent scurvy.
In England, the canning industry competed with the French one. During the 20th century,
the extension of this activity was significant and followed the standard of living. An exam-
ple of the growth of the canning industry after the World War II is given in Table 3.
(23)
Appert’s process, named appertization, is now used worldwide; canned products are
well accepted and the industrial production is around 100 billion cans per year.
(1)
Conclusions
Nicolas Appert was an empirical manufacturer with a specific target: the long life preserv-
ing of foodstuff. He remained a stranger to scientific questions. The importance of
Appert’s discovery in the field of food technology justifies his posthumous fame. Before
Appert, food preserving was unsatisfactory from the microbiological point of view and
detrimental from the organoleptic point of view. The stability and gustative qualities of
appertized food were quickly recognized by his contemporaries. Unfortunately, Nicolas
Appert, the inventor, never profited from his innovation. During his life, he was
confronted with financial problems due to both financial disinterest and bad management
of his manufacture. Thus, he was destitute and died alone even when the repercussions of
his invention deeply modified our food availability and our consumption habits. Appert’s
discovery also improved hygienic and nutritional qualities of foodstuff. At the start of the
industrial revolution, Appert’s process affected numerous fields: mechanical arts
Table 3
Evolution of the French cannery industry between 1955 and 1975 (23)
Canned products
(thousand tons) 1955 1961 1965 1967 1969 1972 1974 1975
Basic products 201 436 – 770 – – 1420 1307
Cooked dishes – – 72.5 – 170 290 – 297
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Nicolas Appert 125
(packing, autoclave), physico-chemical studies (heat transfer, microbiology), marketing
and consumer habits. In a word, Appert’s work is a stage of first importance in the
industrial evolution of our modern society.
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