BIRDSEYE FROZEN FOOD

Clarence Birdseye was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1886 and had a interesting early career as a naturalist. He did not invent freezing food, there were already frozen meat and fish on the market by the time he arrived in Labrador in 1912, but the quality was very low. The conventional method was rather slow and allowed ice crystals to form which reduced the product to mush and destroyed the flavor.

The native Inuit taught Birdseye how they froze fish under very cold conditions that froze it almost instantly, this caused less ice crystals and left the fish with a good texture and a fresh taste. Birdseye instantly saw the potential in a quick freezing method .When he arrived back in the United States he started experimenting and in 1922 set up his own company.

Sales were very slow for his product but he soon invented a new very quick freezing method that also used pressure to freeze the fish. Through the years Birdseye would invent many processes and machines to freeze fish and in 1927 he started to use the same process for meat, poultry and produce.

Even after Birdseye sold the company in 1929 to General Foods he still worked on improving the technology. Before his work people could only eat locally raised fish or expensive fish that was shipped in fresh. Birdseye and his invention expanded the diet choices for millions of people around the world.

Today frozen food is considered a necessity but of course it wasn’t always that way. Extensive advertising was necessary to convince people to try the product and to create a demand that justified grocers installing expensive freezers to store the product. The product really exploded during WWII when so many women were working that they needed a quick way to cook dinner. The ads below are from 1942 and 1943.