Clarence Birdseye

Clarence Birdseye (born December 9, 1886 in Brooklyn , New York ; † October 7, 1956 in Manhattan , New York ) was an American biologist and is considered the inventor of frozen foods .

Act

At the end of the 1920s, Birdseye introduced the first plate freezer for industrial deep freezing, in which the frozen food is placed between metal plates through which refrigerant flows and which are raised hydraulically until they come into close contact with the goods. Birdseye copied this preservation method from the Eskimos , who hang their fish to freeze in the −40 ° C cold air.

With an investment of 7 dollars, he built his first deep freezing system in 1923. In 1929, The Goldman-Sachs Trading Corporation and The Postum Company (later General Foods Corporation ) bought the patent and trademark rights from him for $ 22 million. On March 6, 1930, the first frozen vegetables under the name "Birds Eye Frosted Foods" were offered in the USA .

Birdseye died of a heart attack on October 7, 1956.

Procedure

Conventional freezing processes of the time were carried out at higher temperatures (i.e. only a little below 0 ° C), so that the freezing was much slower, which gave ice crystals more time to grow. Today it is known that rapid freezing creates smaller ice crystals that do less damage to the tissue structure. For this reason, today's freezers for home use have a super freeze mode, which must be switched on by a special button on the device for a long time before you can freeze something yourself.

When frozen frozen food slowly thaws, cell fluid leaks from tissue damaged by ice crystals, giving the affected food a mushy or dry consistency during preparation. Birdseye solved this problem.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Birdseye, Clarence
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American inventor of frozen food
DATE OF BIRTH	December 9, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH	Brooklyn , New York City
DATE OF DEATH	October 7, 1956
Place of death	Manhattan , New York City