Canned food
In the past fresh fruit and vegetables were eaten when they were in season. For instance baby carrots and peas were eaten in spring, lettuce and strawberries in summer, apples, pears and plums in autumn, turnips and swedes in winter. Other foods were best at different times of year too. Eggs were best from April to June and pork from September to April.
This picture shows factory workers in Australia selecting peaches to go into Sainsbury’s cans in 1962. The idea of using tin cans to contain and preserve food was invented in Britain in 1810. By late Victorian times manufacturers could make them cheaply and in large quantities. Sainsbury’s started importing canned fruit from overseas in the 1920s but it was an expensive luxury until after the Second World War. In the 1950s Sainsbury’s buyers travelled overseas to select top quality fruit for their own brand cans.