Top three food and drink inventions: Royal Society

By Mike Stones

- Last updated on GMT

A cool win: the top food and drink invention of all time - the fridge
A cool win: the top food and drink invention of all time - the fridge
The fridge, pasteurisation and canning are the greatest three inventions in the history of food and drink, according to the Royal Society − the UK’s national academy of science.

All three inventions feature in a top 20 list, which also included the plough, the microwave and baking.

The results were the result of a project which saw a steering group of Royal Society Fellows – including a Nobel prize winner – cut a long list of about 100 innovations to just 20.

Nobel prize winner

The shortlist was then voted on by fellows of the society and experts in the food and drink industry. Each innovation was judged on four criteria: accessibility, productivity, aesthetics, and health.

Chair of the judging panel and Royal Society treasurer Sir Peter Williams said: “Royal Society fellows have played vital roles in improving people’s lives for 350 years and science has a major role to play in meeting the global challenges of the 21st​ century.

“We thought it appropriate to look at how that innovation has shaped what we eat and drink.  The poll reveals the huge role science and innovation have played in improving our health and our lives. This is something to which the scientific community continues to add.”

Terry Jones, Food and Drink Federation director of communications, said: “It’s incredible how food and drink innovations have made such an impact on our lifestyles and interesting to see that items we take so much for granted now, such as the fridge and tin can, are at the top of the Royal Society Fellows list.

Food innovation

“Food innovation is a fascinating and hi-tech area into which we are looking to recruit the best scientists and engineers.  I’m sure that in 100 years people will look back nostalgically on some of the cutting edge food technology that we are only just developing now.”

The fridge, pasteurisation and canning resulted from Anglo-French scientific successes in the 18th​ and 19th​ centuries.

Mechanical refrigeration was demonstrated first in Glasgow in 1748, before commercial production in 1805.

The first pasteurisation test was conducted in France in 1862.

Meanwhile, a British merchant patented the tin can in 1810. But a year earlier a Frenchman applied a similar process with glass jars and cork.

 

Top 20 inventions

1 Refrigeration

2 Pasteurisation / sterilisation

3 Canning

4 The oven

5 Irrigation

6 Threshing machine / combine harvester

7 Baking

8 Selective breeding

9 Grinding / milling

10 The plough

11 Fermentation

12 The fishing net

13 Crop rotation

14 The pot

15 The knife

16 Eating utensils

17 The cork

18 The barrel

19 The microwave oven

20 Frying

Source: The Royal Society

 

Source: Royal Society

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