Can It: How the Tin Can Revolutionised Food, Culture, and Consumption

The transformative impact of the tin can, an iconic yet overlooked invention, on global food history, consumption patterns, and cultural practices is of interest in this research. Emerging from scientific efforts to preserve food safely, canning technology reshaped eating habits, contributed significantly to food security, and enabled imperial and colonial expansion. Employing a material culture approach, the research situates canned food within broader historical contexts including war, colonisation, industrialisation, and consumerism. It critically examines pivotal moments such as Nicolas Appert’s foundational preservation experiments, the deadly failures of early canning ventures, and key developments by Borden, Campbell’s, Heinz, and Hormel’s Spam, highlighting how each influenced societal attitudes toward convenience, hygiene, and taste. By tracing canned food's journey from risky innovation to household staple—exemplified through wartime sustenance, post-war suburbanisation, and 1950s consumer culture—this study demonstrates how a simple metal container profoundly altered human diets, domestic labour, economic practices, and ultimately, global food systems.