In
the early 1880s, though, name-brand groceries still lay in the future. Their
arrival, and the spread of retail food chains that would follow in their wake,
awaited two inventions so prosaic they were quickly taken for granted: the
cardboard box and the tin can.
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The
cardboard box was the result of an accident at the Metropolitan Paper-Bag
Manufactory in New York. The paper bag had been invented to replace cotton bags
unavailable during the Civil War, and Metropolitan's founder, the inventor
Robert Gair, developed the earliest method of mass-producing bags printed with
the name of a retailer or manufacturer. By 1878, Metropolitan's eighteen-page
catalog included such offerings as oyster-fry boxes and candy boxes, all of
which were meticulously folded by hand and were far too costly for general use.
Early the following year, one of Gair's workers ruined a print run of paper
bags by placing a rule too high above the plane of his printing form, so that
instead of printing a line it cut clear through the paper. The mishap led to an
inspiration: Gair realized "that if he arranged blades at different
heights, some could slice through cardboard to create the template for a box
while others could simultaneously score the cardboard, without cutting through,
where folds were required. In addition to providing a cheap, convenient form of
packaging, Gair's boxes offered surfaces that could be decorated with pictures,
logos, and brand names. Instead of asking the grocer for a pound of soap
powder, the shopper could now request a particular variety by name.
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Canned
goods, like cardboard boxes, were an old idea that became economical only in
the 1880s. Canned goods were first used to feed Napoleon's army in 1795, and
the first U.S. canning plant was established in 1819. But cans were expensive:
each was made of tin pieces individually cut with shears and then soldered
together, with a skilled can maker turning out a hundred cans of day. The
industry got a boost from military orders during the Civil War and the start of
salmon canning on the Pacific coast in 1864, and by 1870 the United States had
over a hundred plants canning fruits, vegetables, fish, and oysters. The key
inventions came in 1874, when two Baltimore men, A. K. Shriver and John Fisher,
found alternative ways of controlling temperature to avoid explosions during
the canning process. A new machine to cap cans was introduced in the mid-1880s,
reducing the need for skilled cappers, and the first successful labeling
machine was invented in 1893. Automation made canning cheap: one man could cook
five thousand cans of tomatoes a day in 1865 but four times that many in 1894,
at a lower daily wage. More than a thousand canneries were operating in 1890,
and expansion was so rapid that by 1900 food processing accounted for one-fifth
of all manufacturing in the United States. Cheap canning provided grocers a
wide assortment of branded merchandise to sell.
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Cardboard
boxes and tin cans appealed to a public increasingly concerned with hygiene and
sanitation. The use of sealed containers alleviated at least some of the worry
that the flies constantly buzzing about grocery stores would contaminate food
and spread disease. Canned goods were often insalubrious - "the consumers
thereof are exposed to greater or less dangers from poisoning from copper,
zinc, tin and lead," a government study warned in 1893 - but for many
consumers the risks of metal poisoning from poorly made cans were minor
compared with the advantages of being able to buy peaches or tomatoes any time
of year. And as George H. Hartford quickly recognized, the new packaging made
it possible for the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company to carry branded
products that were on sale nowhere else. The A&P brand was soon applied to
condensed milk, then to spices and flavorings, then to butter. By the early 1890s,
Great Atlantic & Pacific was making the shift from tea company to grocery
chain.
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Marc Levinson "Great A&P & The Struggle For
Small Business In America" (2011)
