Underwood
Canning Company - (en)
The Underwood Canning Company was a canning company that had a key
role in time-temperature research done at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) during 1895–6 which would lead to the
development of food science and technology as a profession.
The company was established by its founder William Underwood
(1787–1864) in 1822 in Boston, Massachusetts as a condiment company
using glass packing techniques. Among the condiments and other items
glass packed were mustard, ketchup, pickles, and cranberries. By 1836,
Underwood shifted his packing from glass to steel cans coated with tin
on the inside because glassmakers in the Boston area could not keep up
with product demands from the canning company.
Underwood's canned foods proved valuable to settlers during the
Manifest Destiny period of 1840–60. Additionally, Underwood sold
numerous canned food to Union troops during the American Civil War of
1861–65. The amount of products canned increased to include seafood
products like lobster, oyster, and mackerel. William Underwood died in
1864, the same year that William Lyman Underwood, his grandson, was
born. Underwood's son, William James, would head the business as new
retort technology continued to be developed for use.
A problem that would be encountered by the canning company from its
early beginnings in 1822 to 1895 would be cans that had "swells"
in them, causing a great deal of product loss. William Lyman
Underwood, the grandson of the founder, decided in late 1895 that he
had enough of the product loss and went to MIT for assistance of this
problem.
Underwood approached William Thompson Sedgwick, the chair of the
Biology department at MIT about the concerns he had with the recent
product swells and explosion of clams. Sedgwick then summoned his
assistant Samuel Cate Prescott and detailed him on the issue. From
late 1895 to late 1896, Prescott and Underwood worked on the problem
every afternoon, focusing on canned clams. They first discovered that
the clams contained some heat-resistant bacterial spores that were
able to survive the processing; then that these spores' presence
depended on the clams' living environment; and finally that these
spores would be killed if processed at 250°F (121°C) for ten minutes
in a retort.
These studies prompted the similar research of canned lobster,
sardines, peas, tomatoes, corn, and spinach. Prescott and Underwood's
work was first published in late 1896, with further papers appearing
from 1897 to 1926. This research, though important to the growth of
food technology, was never patented.
This research proved beneficial to the Underwood Canning Company, the
canning industry, the food industry, and food technology itself.
In the late 1950s, the new president of the William Underwood Company,
George Seybolt, was brought over by his predecessor, W. Durant, to MIT
to meet Prescott (William Lyman Underwood had died in 1929). At the
Institute of Food Technologists Northeast Section (Maine,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont meeting at
Watertown, Massachusetts in April 1961, the William Underwood Company
dedicated a new laboratory in honor of both Prescott and William Lyman
Underwood. Following Prescott's death in 1962, the William Underwood
Company created the Underwood Prescott Memorial Lectureship in memory
of both Underwood and Prescott. This Lectureship would run until 1982.
In 1969, Seybolt donated USD 600,000 to MIT to create the Underwood
Professorship, followed up with an Underwood Prescott Professorship in
1972. Three MIT faculty have held this professorship since its
inception: Samuel A. Goldblith, Gerald N. Wogan, and since 1996,
Stephen R. Tannebaum.
Underwood acquired the Burnham & Morrill (B&M) Company of
Portland, Maine in 1965. B&M had actually purchased canned clams
and tomatoes from Underwood in the late 1860s for resale before
producing these products on its own. Baked beans were the best known
product that B&M started producing, and that it was done back in
the 1920s with its Brick Oven Baked Beans. Piermont Foods, a food
company in Montreal, Canada, was acquired in 1968 in order for
Underwood to sell its products north of the border. This included
B&M Baked Beans and Underwood Deviled Hams which was (and still is)
Underwood's best known product.
Created in 1868 as a mixture of ground ham with special seasonings, it
would also be done with other meat and seafood products. This included
turkey, lobster, and chicken, and would dub the process as "deviling."
"Deviling" consists of adding such spices as hot sauce,
cayenne pepper, Dijon mustard, or chopped hot peppers. Trademarked in
1870, it is still the oldest food trademark in the United States as of
2006. The famous red devil debuted in 1895 that started as a demonic
person shown in red with a goatee who now appears "happy" on
all Underwood products.
Underwood was sold to PET Dairy in 1982 and B&M's Westwood,
Massachusetts facility was closed. Included in this was B&M Foods
as part of the sale. Thirteen years later, Pillsbury Bakery acquired
PET Dairy, and began a modernzation process that included warehousing,
production, and processing. B&G Foods of New York, New York
acquired Underwood's Deviled Ham and five other products in 1999 where
they have remained since.
