under severe distribution and storage conditions. Other military packaging must transport materiel, supplies, foods, etc. Some military supplies are packaged in the same commercial packaging used for general industry. Many prominent innovations in the packaging industry were developed first for military use. Ī pill box made from polyethylene in 1936. As additional materials such as aluminum and several types of plastic were developed, they were incorporated into packages to improve performance and functionality. These innovations increased processing efficiency and improved food safety. Packaging advancements in the early 20th century included Bakelite closures on bottles, transparent cellophane overwraps and panels on cartons. Ĭommercial paper bags were first manufactured in Bristol, England, in 1844, and the American Francis Wolle patented a machine for automated bag-making in 1852. Gair discovered that by cutting and creasing in one operation he could make prefabricated paperboard boxes. Gair's invention came about as a result of an accident: as a Brooklyn printer and paper-bag maker during the 1870s, he was once printing an order of seed bags, and the metal ruler, commonly used to crease bags, shifted in position and cut them. Scottish-born Robert Gair invented the pre-cut paperboard box in 1890-flat pieces manufactured in bulk that folded into boxes. Corrugated (also called pleated) paper received a British patent in 1856 and was used as a liner for tall hats. The first corrugated box was produced commercially in 1817 in England. Set-up boxes were first used in the 16th century and modern folding cartons date back to 1839. In 1858, another lever-type opener of a more complex shape was patented in the United States by Ezra Warner of Waterbury, Connecticut. Robert Yeates, a cutlery and surgical instrument maker of Trafalgar Place West, Hackney Road, Middlesex, UK, devised a claw-ended can opener with a hand-operated tool that haggled its way around the top of metal cans. The progressive improvement in canning stimulated the 1855 invention of the can opener. By 1813, they were producing the first canned goods for the Royal Navy. He sold his patent in 1812 to two other Englishmen, Bryan Donkin and John Hall, who refined the process and product and set up the world's first commercial canning factory on Southwark Park Road, London. After receiving the patent, Durand did not himself follow up with canning food. With the discovery of the importance of airtight containers for food preservation by French inventor Nicholas Appert, the tin canning process was patented by British merchant Peter Durand in 1810. Tobacconists in London began packaging snuff in metal-plated canisters from the 1760s onwards.ġ914 magazine advertisement for cookware with instructions for home canning. The tinplate was shipped from Newport, Monmouthshire. Tinplate boxes first began to be sold from ports in the Bristol Channel in 1725. The method pioneered there of rolling iron plates by means of cylinders enabled more uniform black plates to be produced than was possible with the former practice of hammering. By 1697, John Hanbury had a rolling mill at Pontypool for making "Pontypoole Plates". The manufacturing of tinplate was the monopoly of Bohemia for a long time in 1667 Andrew Yarranton, an English engineer, and Ambrose Crowley brought the method to England where it was improved by ironmasters including Philip Foley. The use of tinplate for packaging dates back to the 18th century. The earliest recorded use of paper for packaging dates back to 1035, when a Persian traveller visiting markets in Cairo, Arab Egypt, noted that vegetables, spices and hardware were wrapped in paper for the customers after they were sold. The usage of paper-like material in Europe was when the Romans used low grade and recycled papyrus for the packaging of incense.
The first usage of paper for packaging was sheets of treated mulberry bark used by the Chinese to wrap foods as early as the first or second century B.C. The study of old packages is an essential aspect of archaeology. Processed materials were used to form packages as they were developed: first glass and bronze vessels. The first packages used the natural materials available at the time: baskets of reeds, wineskins ( bota bags), wooden boxes, pottery vases, ceramic amphorae, wooden barrels, woven bags, etc.
Bronze wine container from the 9th century BCE.