Clarence Birdseye was a man of vision, curiosity, and persistence. He was a naturalist, a businessman and a skillful inventor who used his unique gifts to develop a freezing process that not only preserved food safely, but also preserved its taste and appearance.

Birdseye observed, first hand, the ways of the Eskimos who lived in the Arctic and how the use of ice, wind, and temperature almost instantly froze just-caught fish straight through. When the frozen fish were thawed, cooked, and eaten, there was almost no difference in taste and texture than if they would have been prepared from fresh. He concluded it was rapid freezing in the extremely low temperatures that made the food retain its freshness until it was thawed and eaten months later – a procedure called flash freezing.

During flash freezing, items are frozen so fast that only small ice crystals are able to form. The cell walls are not damaged, and the frozen food, when thawed, keeps its maximum flavor, texture, and color. This understanding of simple biology would revolutionize the frozen food industry.

Birdseye returned to the U.S. and formed the General Seafood Corporation with some wealthy partners who believed in his process. The partners' financial support allowed the inventive Birdseye to develop and perfect a machine called a "Quick Freeze Machine" that he unveiled in 1926. Birdseye then focused on marketing. He tested refrigerated grocery display cases and entered into a joint venture agreement to manufacture them. Birdseye’s company began leasing refrigerated boxcars to transport frozen foods by rail in 1944. This made national distribution a reality and Birdseye a legend.

Clarence Birdseye has indirectly improved both the health and convenience of those in the industrialized world. We still appreciate that Birdseye’s process preserves foods’ nutrients as well as their flavor. We place value on the importance of freezing food so rapidly that there would be no damage to its cellular structure and on freezing food in a package that is able to be sold directly to the consumer.

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