Address, “Food Conservation by Cold Storage”
FOOD CONSERVATION BY COLD STORAGE.
By F. G. Urner, Editor, New York Produce Review.
The conservation of food may be considered from two points of view—first, the safeguarding and preservation of the food currently produced; second, the maintenance of those elements of fertility upon which continuous production depends, and the improvement of methods of production to the end that maximum yield may be realized from the labor and material expended. Both considerations are of the utmost importance in the present conditions of changing relation between the domestic supply of food and the needs of nonproducers. In both progress toward higher ideals is dependent upon an increase of knowledge, and worthy of such educational forces as can be brought to bear by a wise government. In both directions the United States Government, through the Department of Agriculture and otherwise, is endeavoring, by investigation, study and the dissemination of ascertained fact, to foster progress for the common good.
In the United States the development of food production to keep pace with the needs of a population increasing at a rate beyond all precedent, has been crude and wasteful. Beginning with virgin soils the stores of primitive fertility have been drawn upon with little regard for their steady depletion. Methods of careful and conservative agriculture that have been forced upon older communities have been largely ignored until comparatively recent years, when an appreciation of the near approach of the inevitable results of waste has turned forceful educational efforts toward a reformation—efforts which, however, have been handicapped by the necessity of overcoming the prejudice of ignorance and long established habit of carelessness.
Considered broadly, the question of conservation of food is far-reaching and extends to innumerable details. It is the purpose in this paper to discuss simply some of the general principles underlying the subject from the first mentioned viewpoint—the safeguarding and preservation of the food produced—particularly in respect to preservation by cold storage.
It is hardly necessary to enlarge upon the general requirement of food preservation. In northern latitudes, where months of production are, in respect to a large part of the food supply, followed by months of nonproduction, this necessity is evident not only to maintain a satisfactory variety of food but to secure a sufficient quantity. In the United States differences of climatic conditions, although giving an almost continuous production of certain vegetable foods, do not serve to furnish an uninterrupted supply of fresh products of many staple kinds, nor are they sufficient to remove the necessity for utilizing the productive power of the colder regions far beyond the consumptive needs during the comparatively brief seasons of harvest. The practice of food storage from the season of natural production through the season of nonproduction is, of course, to some extent, as old as life itself; but the methods of preservation have shared in the improvements that have characterized a modern civilization. And the development of these advanced methods has brought into the question of food preservation new problems, some of which it is the purpose in this paper to discuss.
Methods of food preservation may be broadly divided into two classes—first, those which accomplish their purpose by changing the physical condition of the food, as by drying, or cooking and hermetical sealing; and second, those which preserve the articles in such manner that, when used, they shall be practically in their original condition. The latter methods depend for their effectiveness upon the provision of such environment as will check or retard the forces of deterioration or decay, and it is in the ability to provide such conditions by an artificial control of temperature and humidity that the preservation of food in apparently unchanged physical condition has been greatly extended.
So long as food products were chiefly preserved from the seasons of production, or maximum production, to the season of nonproduction by the use of somewhat primitive means, and largely by producers themselves, or by methods familiar to the household, the food so held was accepted by the people as a matter of course and recognized necessity. Canned and dried foods were, and are, used with general satisfaction as such; and such staple fruits and vegetables as could be carried in their original condition through the winter months were consumed with a general knowledge of their age, but with a full appreciation of the necessity for such holding and of the comparative excellence of the held goods. Butter and eggs also, when held by producers themselves, even by primitive and inefficient means, were accepted by consumers in seasons of natural scarcity with resignation as to their comparatively poor quality under a general knowledge that nothing better could be expected at prices within common reach.
These conditions remain unchanged today in respect to those forms of preserved food whose character is evident either because of their change of form or because of a popular knowledge that the articles, though indistinguishable from fresh products, must have been held from a crop harvested long ago. But the development of preservation by effective artificial control of temperature has brought some new elements into the situation.
Cold storage has enlarged the number of food products preservable in their original condition and created a new industry; it has largely removed the function of this class of food preservation from the scattered individual producers to large central establishments and thrown the business of accumulating and conserving surplus more fully into the hands of tradesmen. It has permitted the preservation of flesh foods in a raw state which were never before so preservable; and it has so improved the quality of stored products whose current production never ceases entirely that in many cases the held goods cannot be distinguished from the fresh production.
These facts have led to a popular apprehension that cold storage, being utilized largely by nonproducers and necessarily upon a speculative basis, is made a tool for extortion or unjust profits; also that deception is practiced, in respect to foods whose production never ceases entirely, by the substitution of stored food for fresh; and exaggerated statements as to the length of time foods are held in storage have brought in question their wholesomeness and created a popular prejudice.
It is important to know the facts in these particulars so that the true function of cold storage in the preservation of food may be understood, especially because legislative restriction of the industry has been effected in some States and is under consideration in others, as well as in the Federal Congress, in the enactment of which mistaken views have resulted and may further result in public injury.
COLD STORAGE ECONOMICS.
It is a self-evident proposition that, in respect to foods the production of which is seasonal, the ability to preserve a part of the yield to the period of nonproduction lessens waste and permits a material increase of production, thus increasing the available food supply. It is also evident that, supposing all the food produced to be marketed and consumed, an increase in the supply of food tends to a lowering of its average price. Apart from inevitable variations due to climatic conditions the production of particular foods increases or diminishes according to the relative profit realized from that production; and it is evident that a profit sufficient to induce production can be realized upon a much greater output if the period during which consumption is possible can be extended. A maximum production of any food can be realized only when the period of its availability for consumption is constant; and it follows that the maximum production of foods whose yield or greatest yield is seasonal, can be realized only by preservation of a part of the production for use during the season of natural dearth or deficiency which ends only with the beginning of the following period of maximum production.
Upon these simple truths rests the economic utility of cold storage preservation. Practically its benefits in the conservation of food, and in the encouragement of maximum production, are to be gained only through the opportunity for profit, and while the business of carrying foods from seasons of abundance to natural scarcity is open to all it is naturally conducted chiefly by the tradesmen who are permanently engaged in food distribution, and who are most familiar with trade conditions and the varying relations of supply and demand.
An important fact bearing upon the practical use of cold storage preservation as a feature of the distributing business is that no profit can be expected by holding products beyond the succeeding period of maximum production, when prices naturally fall to the lowest point. The variations in selling prices at that period are never sufficient to cover the cost of carriage of goods from a previous season and the lessened value of long stored products in comparison with fresh. There are occasional market conditions which have induced the holding of perishable foods in cold storage beyond twelve months in the effort to lessen a loss, but they are rare and exceptional, so much so that a legal restriction of the period of permissible holding to twelve months would have very little effect upon the inducement to utilize cold storage from a commercial standpoint. But so far as the purely economic interests of consumers are concerned it would appear that no restriction of the period of permissible holding of food in cold storage is either necessary or desirable. The inducement to hold is profit, and profit can be realized only by selling into final consumption. And when goods can be carried to a later date and sold at a higher price it is evidence that the relative scarcity which results in that higher price would have been more stringent had the goods not been so carried. In respect to the time of selling stored foods, therefore, the interests of consumers (as a whole) and of owners of the food, would seem to be identical; for it is the increased public need which results in the higher price, and profit, considering storage operations as a whole, depends upon a correct judgment as to that need.
There seems, therefore, no means by which tradesmen dealing in raw foods can utilize cold storage preservation for their own benefit at the cost of a public injury, but that, on the contrary, the profitableness of holding surplus depends upon the performance of a public service.
The ideal function of cold storage preservation is to carry just such amount of surplus from the time of greatest yield as can be consumed during the later period of relative scarcity at just sufficient advance in value as will cover the cost of carriage and afford a maximum satisfactory profit for the conduct of the business and the necessary investment of capital. But it is impossible that this ideal can be uniformly realized. Even if the operations of storage accumulation and withdrawal for market were uniformly governed in the light of the fullest possible knowledge and with the best of judgment, it would be impossible always to determine the quantity to be stored and the normal price thereof so that later deficiency at corresponding prices would be exactly offset. For the extent of later shortage can never be certainly known and the extent of demand at any particular prices is variable and uncertain. As a matter of fact, these operations of storage accumulation and later output, being carried on by thousands of individual and independent dealers, in the dim light of imperfect knowledge, even as to important statistical facts that might be known, can never result in ideal effects. Sometimes the quantity of certain foods stored at the prices paid proves to be excessive and a part of the surplus, toward the approach of the next flush season, has to be thrown upon the markets at heavy losses; sometimes the quantity put away is insufficient to offset the later scarcity and a part of the surplus, carried late, realizes for larger profits than normal. But these conditions are, to a large extent, inevitable, and while they show that the ideal function of cold storage preservation can not always be realized, they do not materially lessen its value. When a series of years is considered it will be found that the average profits are comparatively small in relation to the risks and the investment involved. And even when, during the flush season of accumulation, prices are sustained above the normal level by an amount of accumulation that later proves excessive, consumers get the surplus later at correspondingly lower prices. The reverse is also true, that when the quantity held is deficient, leading to relatively high prices in a part of the season of natural scarcity, a greater previous accumulation, sufficient to prevent so much advance, would have resulted in higher prices during the previous flush season.
The view that the economic effect of cold storage is to increase production and to lower the yearly average price of food whose production is variable is evidenced by such statistics as are available. In the manufacture of butter, for instance, the months of greatest production are from May to August, inclusive, and the months of usual deficiency are from November to March. In the New York market the average price of creamery butter from May to August during the period from 1880 to 1892, before cold storage preservation was generally used, was 21.9 cents. During the same months in the period from 1902 to 1911, when cold storage facilities were largely available, the average price was 23.4 cents. But while this comparison shows an average advance of one 1½ cents during the four months of normal accumulation of surplus the effect upon prices during the normal season of shortage was very apparent; for in the months November to March in the period 1880 to 1892 the average wholesale price was 34.3 cents, while during the same months in the period from 1902 to 1911 the average for fine fresh creamery was only 28.9 cents, and the average for fine storage creamery 26.7 cents.
THE QUALITY OF COLD STORED FOODS.
The quality of all perishable food products varies according to the methods of their production and the care taken of them during transit from producer to consumer. The more perishable foods, being produced in a very wide territory by a vast number of producers, and usually transported over long distances, are found in distributing markets to be of extremely irregular quality and condition. Usually qualities are best in the seasons of maximum production, and while goods put into cold storage are also of irregular quality most of those intended for long holding are selected, handled and packed with especial care. The effect upon perishable foods of holding in cold storage is various. It is less in respect to those carried hard frozen, as meat, fish, poultry and butter, and upon durable vegetables and fruit, as potatoes and apples, than upon animal products that cannot be frozen, as eggs in the shell. Yet in all perishable foods commonly carried in cold storage, quality, as judged by popular standards, is preservable up to the limit of usual commercial necessity, in a highly satisfactory degree. The more durable fruits and vegetables, carried in properly corrected and controlled atmospheric conditions, after months of holding, are often indistinguishable in point of quality, from those marketed soon after their harvest. Butter carried frozen for months loses very little of its original flavor and character. Poultry, also, if of fine quality and condition when frozen, may be so held for a long period without noticeable deterioration. Eggs in cold storage gradually lose the peculiar freshness of a new laid quality, but under proper conditions they remain sound, sweet and acceptable when carried at about 30 degrees temperature for at least nine or ten months. Scientific investigation conducted by the research laboratories of the United States Department of Agriculture has given no evidence of any effect of an unwholesome character upon the quality of perishable foods held in cold storage up to the limit of usual commercial practice when the products were sound and wholesome when stored.
The cold storage of surplus and the sale thereof in the markets adds not at all to the irregularity in quality of our food supply. On the contrary, the average quality of the supply is improved, for, without the facility of refrigeration, freshly marketed products would inevitably be poorer; they are now often poorer than similar goods of much greater age properly carried in cold storage. Furthermore, the length of time perishable foods are carried in cold storage is, within reasonable limits, no criterion of their quality. Perfect products, properly refrigerated for months, may be, and often are, superior in all the elements of quality to imperfect goods, freshly marketed or held only a short time. Again, because of the very widely spread sources of our food supply, the necessity for collection at innumerable points and transportation over long distances it is hard to say what goods are “fresh.” Even when collected at interior points, transported to distant markets and put into consumption with usual promptness perishable products are often two to four weeks in the transit from producer to consumer, and often under more or less unfavorable environments.
Under these circumstances it is seriously to be doubted that there is any real ethical foundation for the recent demand that, in the sale of perishable foods, there must be a stated distinction between so-called “fresh” and stored products, or for the feeling that consumers asking for broiling chickens in the winter, for instance, are deceived if furnished with acceptable goods frozen six months before. And this doubt is intensified, no matter how scrupulous we may be in standing for truth and fair dealing, when it is considered how difficult will be the enforcement of laws compelling such distinction in commodities of irregular quality and condition whose age and previous environment cannot be known by examination, and in respect to which a comparison of quality is often in favor of the older goods.
The writer’s conclusion from the foregoing considerations, based upon a long and disinterested observation of the practical use of cold storage preservation, is that artificial refrigeration furnishes the most important of all modern factors in the conservation of perishable foods, leading to an increase in their production, and to a consequent lowering of average prices. Also that governmental attention to the industry would be more usefully directed toward providing for continuous and frequent statistical information of the rate of food accumulation and output, to the end that operators may be guided by the largest possible knowledge, rather than toward any undue restriction of the industry or the imposition of costly and difficult requirements which, though seemingly designed to prevent deception, are, upon analysis, found to be unnecessary and impractical.