Appeared for the first time in Europe during the Napoleonic wars, canned food debuted on shelves in the 19th century and has evolved throughout the decades to become an ubiquitous feature of life. It is worth celebrating its remarkable history in photos.
Late 1800s, women working at Richardson & Robbins Cannery, USA


1909, a canning machine in Baltimore, USA

1920, Discharged Sailors, Soldiers & Airmen’s store

1925, a housewife with her own ‘Home Canner’

1928, canned food made picnicking easier

1930, grocery store

1934, women canning beans in the UK

1936, canning plums

… and peas

1937, fancy a canned beer?


1939, war has started and the British government promotes hermetically-sealed bread

1940, Red Cross Christmas package for British prisoners of war in German camps

1944, the first self-heating can

1955, packers at a fruit factory

1955, canning peanut oil in Cuba

1955, strange food (octopus on skewers, lava worms, fried silkworms)

1956, Unox pork luncheon meat

1960, British chef Fanny Cradock at the First National Delicatessen Exhibition in London

1962, a Harrods hamper

1962, Russian caviar

1963, easy to open cola can, the first aluminum can to be used in soda manufacturing

1981, Hungarian space food for cosmonaut Bertalan Farkas

2005, packers fill sardine cans, US

2006, a canned food menu for the International Space Station

2015, Milacron Holding’s Klear Can, a see-through alternative to metal cans
