Birdseye, Clarence

SUBJECT AREA: Agricultural and food technology

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b. 9 December 1886 Brooklyn, New York, USA

d. 7 October 1956 USA

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American inventor of the fast-freezing method of food preservation.

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Clarence Birdseye went to high school at Montclair in New Jersey, and from there to Amherst College between 1906 and 1910. He became a field naturalist on the US Department of Agriculture's survey of 1910 to 1912, and during the following five years worked as a fur trader. He was the Purchasing Agent for the US Navy Corps between 1917 and 1919, and acted as Assistant to the President of the US Fisherman's Association between 1920 and 1922.

Birdseye was a keen fisherman, and during his time in Labrador learnt how to fast-freeze his catch in the wind. He formed the Birdseye Seafood Company in 1923 and pioneered the development of quick-freezing methods for the preservation of dressed seafood. His first company went bankrupt, but he quickly formed the General Seafoods Corporation. He filed his first patent in 1924 for the plate freezer, and in the late 1920s developed the double belt freezer. In 1929 Birdseye's company was bought out for $22 million, Birdseye himself receiving $1 million. He was an active member of the American Fisherman's Society, the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Society of Mammalogists and the Institute of Food Technologists.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Nutrition Foundation Stephen M.Babcock Award 1949.

Further Reading

W.H.Clark and J.Moynahan, Famous Leaders of Industry (gives a brief account of Birdseye's life).

1982, Frozen Food Age (August) (an account of the development of the industry he created).

AP