Clarence Birdseye

Clarence Birdseye was a man of vision, curiosity, and persistence. He was a naturalist, a businessman and a skillful inventor who used his unique gifts to develop a freezing process that not only preserved food safely, but also preserved its taste and appearance.

Birdseye observed, first hand, the ways of the Eskimos who lived in the Arctic and how the use of ice, wind, and temperature almost instantly froze just-caught fish straight through. When the frozen fish were thawed 1) , cooked, and eaten, there was almost no difference in taste and texture than if they would have been prepared from fresh. He concluded it was rapid freezing in the extremely low temperatures that made the food retain 2) its freshness until it was thawed and eaten months later– a procedure called flash freezing.

During flash freezing, items are frozen so fast that only small ice crystals are able to form. The cell walls are not damaged, and the frozen food, when thawed, keeps its maximum flavor 3) , texture, and color. This understanding of simple biology would revolutionize 4) the frozen food industry.

1)thaw [θɔ́ ː ] 녹다 of ice and snow to turn back into water after being frozen/silver thaw우빙 (雨氷 ), 무빙(霧氷 ) defrost [diː frɔ́ ː st] 없애다 /demist; 냉동 식품을 녹이다 ; 자산 동결을 해제하다 서리 [ 얼음 ] 가 걷히다 얼은 것이 녹다/thaw snowbreak [-brèik] 눈막이 방설림防雪林 해설 解雪 눈녹음thaw 나무가 눈의 무게 때문에 부러짐 2)retain [ritéin] 계속 유지하다 to keep sth 3)flavor enhancer 화학 조미료 flavored맛이 나는 , 풍미가… 한 /flavorful 풍미 있는 , 맛좋은 /flavoring 맛내기 , 조미 (調味 ), UC 조미료 , 양념 flavorless풍미 없는 , 운치 없는 /flavorous 풍미 있는 , 맛있는 , 풍취 있는 /flavorsome 풍미 있는 , 맛좋은 / flavory풍미가 풍부한 , 향기로운

- 1 - Birdseye returned to the U.S. and formed the General Seafood Corporation with some wealthy partners who believed in his process. The partners' financial support allowed the inventive Birdseye to develop and perfect a machine called a "Quick Freeze Machine" that he unveiled in 1926. Birdseye then focused on marketing. He tested refrigerated grocery display cases and entered into a joint venture agreement to manufacture them. Birdseye’s company began leasing refrigerated boxcars to transport frozen foods by rail in 1944. This made national distribution a reality and Birdseye a legend.

Clarence Birdseye has indirectly improved both the health and convenience of those in the industrialized world. We still appreciate that Birdseye’s process preserves foods’ nutrients as well as their flavor. We place value on the importance of freezing food so rapidly that there would be no damage to its cellular structure and on freezing food in a package that is able to be sold directly to the consumer. Birds Eye Foods® was founded in the early sixties as Curtice Burns Inc., in partnership with a farmer cooperative, Pro-Fac Cooperative. The Company grew out of Western , but over the years diversified and expanded geographically, acquiring companies with regional strengths. A portfolio of fruit and vegetable products soon grew to include items such as snacks, canned meals and salad dressings. Today, Birds Eye Foods is a privately-held food marketing company whose focus is on innovation and new products that provide value and

4)revolutionize [rèvə lúː ʃə nàiz] 1 혁명을 일으키다 , 급격한 변화를 가져오다 2 대변혁을 받다 revolution [rèvə lúː ʃə n]혁명 , 대변혁 , 회전 ,an attempt, by a large number of people, to change the government of a country, especially by violent action

- 2 - convenience to consumers.

story from :http://www.birdseyefoods.com/ourcompany/story.aspx

Additional Story

Early life Birdseye's double belt freezer (US Patent #1,773,079) Birdseye was born in in . He became interested in food preservation by freezing while working as a field naturalist for the United States government in Labrador, Canada, between 1912-1915. He was working to pay for his education as a biology major at Amherst College. He was taught by the Inuit 5) how to ice fish under very thick ice. In -40°C weather, he discovered that the fish he caught froze almost instantly, and when thawed, tasted fresh. He knew immediately that the frozen seafood sold in New York was of lower quality than the frozen fish of Labrador.

Conventional freezing methods of the time were commonly done at higher temperatures, and thus the freezing occurred much more slowly, giving ice crystals more time to grow. We now know that fast freezing produces smaller ice crystals, which cause less damage to the tissue structure.

In 1922 Birdseye conducted fish-freezing experiments at the Clothel Refrigerating Company, then established his own company, Birdseye Seafoods Inc., to freeze fish fillets via chilled air at -45°F (-43°C). In 1924 his company went bankrupt due to lack of consumer interest in the product. That same year

5) Inuit [|ɪ nju ɪ t] a race of people from northern Canada and parts of Greenland and Alaska. The name is sometimes also wrongly used to refer to people from Siberia and S and W Alaska.

- 3 - he developed an entirely new process for commercially viable quick-freezing: pack fish in cartons, then freeze the contents between two refrigerated surfaces under pressure. Birdseye created a new company, General Seafood Corporation, to promote this method.

[edit] Industrial development In 1925 his General Seafood Corporation moved to Gloucester, Massachusetts. There it employed Birdseye's newest invention, the double belt freezer, in which cold brine chilled a pair of stainless steel belts carrying packaged fish, freezing the fish quickly. His invention subsequently issued as US Patent #1,773,079, marking the beginning of today's frozen foods industry. Birdseye then took out patents 6) on machinery which cooled more quickly so that only small ice crystals can form and cell walls are not damaged. In 1927 he began to extend the process to quick-freezing of meat, poultry 7) , fruit, and vegetables. In 1929, Birdseye sold his company and patents for $22 million to and the Postum Company, which eventually became Corporation, and which founded the Birds Eye Frosted Food Company. Birdseye continued to work with the company, developing frozen food technology. In 1930 the company began sales experiments in 18 retail stores around Springfield, Massachusetts to test consumer acceptance of quick-frozen foods. The initial product line featured 26 items, including 18 cuts of frozen meat, spinach and peas, a variety of fruits and berries, blue point oysters, and fish fillets. Consumer acceptance was strong, and today this experiment is considered the birth of retail frozen foods. The "Birds Eye" name remains a leading frozen-food brand. [edit] Death He died on October 7, 1956 of a heart attack at the Gramercy Park Hotel. He was 69 years.[1]

6)patent [pǽtnt] 1 특허 2 특허의 , 명백한 an official right to be the only person to make, use or sell a product or an invention 7)poultry [póultri] 가금 (家禽 ) chickens, ducks and geese, kept for their meat or eggs

- 4 - CLARENCE BIRDSEYE (1886-1956) Retail Frozen Foods Clarence Birdseye found a way to flash-freeze foods and deliver them to the public---one of the most important steps forward ever taken in the food industry. Born in Brooklyn in 1886, Birdseye was a biology major at Amherst College when quit school to work as a naturalist for the US government. He was posted to the Arctic, where he observed first-hand the ways of the native Americans who lived there. Birdseye saw that the combination of ice, wind and temperature almost instantly froze just-caught fish straight through. More importantly, he found that when the fish were cooked and eaten, they were scarcely different in taste and texture than they would have been if fresh. Birdseye the biologist saw that the fish were frozen too quickly for ice crystals to form and ruin their cellular structure. Birdseye the businessman saw that the public back home would gladly pay for such frozen foods, if he could deliver them. He returned to New York, and in 1924 founded Birdseye Seafoods, Inc. In the early 1900s, many people were experimenting with mechanical and chemical methods to preserve food. After years of work on his own process, Birdseye invented a system that packed dressed fish, meat or vegetables into waxed-cardboard cartons, which were flash-frozen under high pressure (patent #1,773,079, 1930). Birdseye now turned to marketing. He tested refrigerated grocery display cases in 1930, and entered a joint venture to manufacture them in 1934. In 1944, Birdseye's company began leasing refrigerated boxcars to transport the frozen foods by rail nationwide. This made national distribution a reality, and Birdseye a legend. Today, we especially appreciate that Birdseye's process, still basically in use, preserves foods' nutrients as well as their flavor. In fact, we can say that Clarence Birdseye has indirectly improved both the health and convenience of virtually everyone in the industrialized world. For more information, visit the Birdseye web site. For an overview of the history of frozen foods, visit the American Frozen Foods Institute website. [Dec. 1997]

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