Early life and education edit
The sixth of nine children born to Clarence Frank Birdseye, an insurance firm lawyer, and Ada Jane Underwood was Clarence Birdseye. [1] He was born and raised in New York City, where his family had a townhouse in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill. Birdseye had a lifelong fascination with natural science and taxidermy, which he learned on his own through correspondence. When he was eleven years old, he promoted his courses on the topic. [2][3][4] After the family relocated to the New Jersey suburb of Montclair when he was fourteen, Birdseye attended Montclair High School. [5] After receiving degrees from his father and older brother, he matriculated at Amherst College. He did well in science there, but he did not do well in other subjects. His college peers called him “Bugs” because of his obsession with collecting insects. [1]: 33.
Birdseye worked as a “assistant naturalist” for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in New Mexico and Arizona during the summer following his first year of college. At the time, the USDA was primarily concerned with assisting farmers and ranchers in getting rid of coyotes and other predators. [6].
Family finances in 1908[1]: 34 compelled Birdseye to leave college after just two years. [7] It’s unclear if Birdseye’s withdrawal from Amherst was connected to the 1917 prison sentence served by his father and older brother Kellogg for defrauding their employer.
The USDA hired Birdseye once more, this time for a project that involved surveying animals in the American West. Additionally, he collaborated with entomologist Willard Van Orsdel King (1888–1970)[8] in Montana, where he caught several hundred small mammals in 1910 and 1911. From these, King removed thousands of ticks for study, identifying them as the source of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a significant discovery. Birdseye’s next field assignment, which he worked on intermittently between 1912 and 1915, was in Labrador, in the Dominion of Newfoundland, which is now a part of Canada. It was there that he developed a deeper interest in freezing food, particularly fast freezing. He bought a piece of land in Muddy Bay and established a fox ranch there. [9] The Inuit taught him how to ice fish beneath extremely thick ice. [10] The Inuit also showed that fresh fish could be flash frozen in an instant when exposed to air in -40 °C weather, and when thawed, it would still taste fresh. Given that the frozen fish of Labrador was of higher quality than that sold in New York, he saw the potential that this traditional knowledge held if it were put to use in production. The food preservation technique developed by Birdseye was directly influenced by his hunting trip to Canada in the 1920s, during which he observed the customs of the native Inuit people. [11].
Food develops ice crystals inside the cells of animals or vegetables when it is slowly frozen at temperatures close to freezing; when the food thaws, cellular fluid seeps out of the injured tissue, giving the food a mushy or dry consistency. At lower temperatures, rapid freezing causes less damage because it gives crystals less time to form. [12].
Birdseye started his own business, Birdseye Seafoods Inc., after conducting fish-freezing experiments at the Clothel Refrigerating Company in 1922. , using chilled air to freeze fish fillets at -43 °C (-45 °F). His business failed in 1924 due to a decline in customer interest in the product. In the same year, he created a completely novel method for quickly freezing fish that could be sold commercially. It involved packing the fish in cartons and applying pressure to freeze the contents between two refrigerator surfaces. Birdseye created General Seafood Corporation to promote this method.
The Fish Finger was first introduced by Birds Eye in 1956 as a great way to get Australian kids to eat more fish. The Fish Finger with Birds Eye will eventually become a symbol. If the quantity of Birds Eye Fish Fingers sold in Australia were stacked end to end, the length of the Great Wall of China would be twice as high.
Maintaining its focus on offering the best-tasting products, Birds Eye created a premium Deli line of flavored chips, roasted veggies, and fish for people who want to enjoy dining out at home. Additionally, Ocean Selections introduced the freezer’s closest alternative to fresh fish: a range of individually wrapped fish fillets fit for any recipe.
Birds Eye conducts thorough market research, and the results show that 90% of Australian mothers are aware that a large portion of the nutritional value of the vegetables is preserved through Birds Eye’s “Time Lock” snap freezing technique. Birds Eye also introduces the “Give ‘Em Your Best” tagline. For the next twenty years, Australians will associate that tagline with Birds Eye.
One of the most significant brand names in the frozen food industry’s history is Birds Eye. One of the main early contributions to the development of the techniques and technologies that made freezing a practical method of food preservation was made by Clarence “Bob” Birdseye. Birds Eye is still creating useful and wholesome products for Australian families today.
Birds Eye launches Oven Bake fish portions and a variety of chips and wedges cooked in cholesterol-free Canola oil. Over the course of the last 20 years, oven bake has become a popular dish in Australia. The first frozen meal starter with veggies and sauce, Create a Meal, is released by Birds Eye at the end of the decade.
Industrial development edit
In 1925, General Seafood Corporation moved to Gloucester, Massachusetts. There, it promoted and sold Birdseye’s most recent creation, the double belt freezer, which swiftly frozen fish by chilling two stainless steel belts with packaged fish. His invention was issued US Patent #1,773,079, considered by some as the beginning of todays frozen foods industry. [13] Birdseye patented other machinery which cooled even more quickly. He was the one who patented the multiplate freezing machine in 1927, and it served as the foundation for food freezing for many years. [14].
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