Francesco Cirio

Francesco Cirio (25 December 1836 – 9 January 1900) was an Italian businessman, and is credited with being one of the first in the world with developing the appertization technique in Italy.^[1] Appertization is the method of processing vegetables that leads to them being canned. The term comes from Nicolas Appert, who invented the first process for using heat to sterilize food.^[2]

Cirio was born in Nizza Monferrato, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, to a poor and illiterate family. When he was 14 years old he came to the capital of the kingdom, Turin. In 1856, Cirio started preserving tomatoes in tin cans for them to be exported. He created his own company (later named Cirio), and when he was 20 years old, he started his first factory in Turin. In 1861, he added further plantations and production facilities in Southern Italy.^[3]^[4] In 1867, Cirio exhibited his products in Paris at the Exposition Universelle, where he received prestigious awards.^[5]

The company was transformed in 1885 into Societa Anonima di Esportazione Agricola Francesco Cirio in Turin. This company very soon opened subsidiaries in Milan, Naples, Belgrade, Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris, and Vienna. Cirio also worked to help the agricultural development of Southern Italy.

He died in 1900 at the age of sixty-three

References

^ "Francesco Cirio 1856-1867". Cirio. Archived from the original on 27 July 2014. Francesco Cirio was amongst the first in the world to be credited with developing the appertization technique (the inventor was Frenchman Nicolas Appert).
^ "Nicolas Appert (c1750 - 1841)". City University of New York.
^ "Cirio, A Brief History". R and V Imports. He heard that Italian expatriates longed to buy vegetables from home and so developed the concept of putting vegetables in cans and this was the birth of the can food industry.
^ Michael Bateman (10 January 1999). "Food and Drink: Canny Cooking". The Independent. It is Italy's major food company, founded by Francesco Cirio, father of the canning industry in Turin in the 1860s.
^ "Cirio since 1856". Ciao Gusto. Archived from the original on 18 October 2014. In 1867 Francesco presented his first products in Paris at the Exposition Universelle, where he received prestigious awards.

External links

Cirio.it – company website (in Italian)
Cirio.co.uk: About Us – company website (in English)

[1] "Francesco Cirio 1856-1867". Cirio. Archived from the original on 27 July 2014. Francesco Cirio was amongst the first in the world to be credited with developing the appertization technique (the inventor was Frenchman Nicolas Appert).

[2] "Nicolas Appert (c1750 - 1841)". City University of New York.

[3] "Cirio, A Brief History". R and V Imports. He heard that Italian expatriates longed to buy vegetables from home and so developed the concept of putting vegetables in cans and this was the birth of the can food industry.

[4] Michael Bateman (10 January 1999). "Food and Drink: Canny Cooking". The Independent. It is Italy's major food company, founded by Francesco Cirio, father of the canning industry in Turin in the 1860s.

[5] "Cirio since 1856". Ciao Gusto. Archived from the original on 18 October 2014. In 1867 Francesco presented his first products in Paris at the Exposition Universelle, where he received prestigious awards.

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