Tin Can Day

Tin Can Day is a celebration held on January 19 every year. Usually we drink cold drinks in tin cans. These boxes are also used to store perishable food and thus occupy a very separate space in each household. Tin cans made of tin-plated steel in every way have changed the way of preservation in daily life in many different respects. Tin Can Day is celebrated as a way to honor this versatile storage material and, at the same time, to raise awareness about the importance of tin cans being recycled.

History of Tin Can Day

The history, origin and founder of this day are still unknown. There is no record of the year since this Day was celebrated. However, this day was celebrated to recognize the patent for tin cans.

Cans were invented as a solution to hunger in combat. The French Directory, which served the years Napoleon's armies fought in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and the Carribean, offered a prize of 12,000 francs for a breakthrough in food preservation.

Nicholas Appert, a Paris resident, chef saw this opportunity and took it. Working for the French aristocracy, he studied different methods of food preservation until presenting his work to the Directory.

The bottle of champagne preserved with cheese and lime is an idea he created based on previous preservation techniques. His factory grew from bottles to glass containers and eventually cans. These preserves were shipped around through the French navy.

Peter Durand decided he wanted to take advantage of food preservation by patenting it and planned to expand further on Appert's idea using western iron.

Once the British saw that the French were using preservation, they believed that they needed to do the same. Soon after, Bryan Donkin and John Hall established the first commercial canning factory in Britian in 1812. Preservation of tin cans became an important factor in the history of battle and war as well as helping to decompress solve the problem of hunger.

In New York, about a century later, the Max Ams Machine Company of New York patented the two-seam process used in most modern food cans and helped advance the future of industrialized products to this day.

How to Celebrate Tin Can Day

Share the history of the tin by telling everyone all about it! Share the history of tin cans on social media and discover how food canning became an influential part of the industrial revolution for first world countries.

Try making a meal using only canned food and get creative with dinner tonight! You can also try making your own crafts and see what you can create with tin cans! Don't forget to bring all the tin cans you have and recycle them.