In 1810, Peter Durand (also known as Pierre Durand) was granted a patent by King George III of England for his idea of preserving food in "vessels of glass, pottery, tin, or other metals or fit materials." Durand's patent was based on 15 years of experimentation by a Frenchman, Nicolas François Appert, who developed the idea of preserving food in bottles. Durand took Appert's idea one step further and replaced the breakable glass bottles with cylindrical tinplate canisters. Durand did not actually can foods himself but sold his patent to two other Englishmen, Bryan Donkin and John Hall, who set up a commercial canning factory and by 1813 were producing their first canned goods for the British army.
External links
- History of the Can at the Can Manufacturers Institute.
