The origin of canning? A glass jar. We are at the very end of the 18th century, in France, and Nicolas Appert has just developed a method of preserving vegetables, by sterilizing glass containers using a bath in water at over 100 degrees. Canning was born. He spread his technique in 1810. The same year, another Frenchman, Pierre Durand, who had emigrated to England, filed a patent for a similar process with metal boxes. It was the beginning of an industrial revolution which would become, after the two world wars, a marker of the consumer society of Western societies.
If glass is the eldest, it has been largely overtaken over the decades by its little sister. Today, according to figures from NielsenIQ, 88% of canned vegetables sold are in metal packaging. And the difference is accentuated over one year with a decline in sales of 0.8% for the former and 2% for jars. A dynamic that can be explained by the price in a context of high inflation. On average per kilo, vegetables enclosed in glass packaging are twice as expensive (5.87 euros compared to 2.31 euros). Individually, the difference is less significant but still: 1 euro separates the average price of a metal can from that of a glass jar.
France
