Some Aspects of Food Conservation By Refrigeration

There has been a remarkable reversal of public opinion in the past three or four years regarding the place cold storage and refrigerating have occupied with regard to the high cost of living. The people, quite generally, led by newspaper agitation, entertained the idea that cold storage facilities were used to artificially control markets and increase prices; that foods were carried for long periods of time, and that the process was detrimental to the public health. It was then that the politicians appeared and various legislative proposals were introduced to control and greatly restrict the cold storage industry. In consequence of this situation and in response to the demand of the business men, whose legitimate enterprises were being unjustly assailed, a series of investigations and hearings were held which demonstrated beyond doubt that the popular notion and newspaper sensational attacks were entirely unfounded and erroneous, and that the cold storage warehousemen performed a useful public function in conserving our perishable foods, preventing deterioration and waste, by affording a scientific method by which the great surplus production of the flush season could be wholesomely preserved for consumption when nature rested from her labors and scant provision issued for the insistent and regular needs of mankind. Then, too, it became apparent that the cold storage process, by enlarging the markets from the immediate time of production to the longer period of the year's cycle, encouraged the farmer to increase his yield, by making profitable his venture and led him to further develop the increasing outlets for his products. Thus to provide a means by which the maximum production can be carried forward a few months to the lean months, is no less a boon and a conserving instrument than is the transporting railway which brings the distant native food to those climes which fail to produce the necessities and luxuries of a bountiful table

Advertising · Business · Cold storage · Consumption (sociology · Control (management · Economics · Legislature · Management · Newspaper · Political science · Production (economics · Sociology · Law · Regional Development and Management Studies

• The impact of mechanical refrigeration on market integration

  Open Access•Lee A Craig, Matthew T Holt•Explorations in Economic History•2017

  Add to list