1940 - Food And Drink

Food And Drink

U.S. red meat consumption reaches 142 pounds per capita on an average annual basis. The figure will increase to 184 pounds in the next 30 years.

Nearly 15,000 U.S. retail stores are equipped to sell frozen foods, up from 516 in 1933.

The A&P sells cellophane-wrapped meat for the first time.

A freeze-drying process for food preservation is discovered (see Maxim, 1964).

Controlled atmosphere (CA) storage is used for the first time on McIntosh apples whose ripening is slowed by storage in gas-tight rooms from which the oxygen has been removed and replaced with natural 1941 gas. Cornell University professor Robert M. Smock has developed the process.

Owens-Illinois Glass introduces Duraglas for deposit bottles. The new bottle glass can stand up to repeated use by beer and soft drink bottlers.

An Illinois district court judge enjoins the city of Chicago to stop its 2-year effort to prevent marketing of milk in paperboard cartons rather than bottles. Many consumers remain nervous about buying milk in cartons, believing the charges by various health officials, and bottlers have become more efficient and reliable about sterilizing their bottles. Close to 33 percent of the fluid milk sold in the United States is now homogenized, and by 1946 about half of it will be homogenized (see 1949).

The United States imports 70 percent of the world coffee crop, up from 50 percent in 1934.

Hors d'Oeuvre and Canapes: With a Key to the Cocktail Party by Oregon-born New York caterer James (Andrews) Beard, 37, launches Beard on a career that will make his name a household word.