Appert, Nicolas (c. 1750-1841)

French pioneer of food preservation by canning. He devised a system of sealing food in glass bottles and subjecting it to heat, described in his book L'Art de conserver les substances animales et végétales/The Art of Preserving all Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances for Several Years 1810. In 1822 he changed to using cylindrical tin-plated steel cans. Appert was born near Paris and trained as a confectioner. By 1795, the feeding of Napoleon's troops had become a problem and the French Directory offered a prize for a practical method of preserving food. This encouraged Appert to begin a 14-year period of experimentation. In 1804 he opened the world's first canning factory - the House of Appert-in Massy, S of Paris. By 1809 he had succeeded in preserving certain foods in glass bottles that had been immersed in boiling water, and he was awarded the prize. Since nothing was known of bacteriology and the causes of decay, Appert proceeded by trial and error. He based his methods on the heating of food to temperatures above 100°C/212°F, using an autoclave (which he perfected) and then sealing the food container to prevent putrefaction. In addition to his work on food preservation, Appert was responsible for the invention of the bouillon cube and he devised a method of extracting gelatin from bones without using acid.