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How does canned food last so long?

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How are beans canned? And how do they stay safe to eat for more than a year? In this Jimmy’s Food Factory clip on BBC Earth Lab, host Jimmy Doherty visits the world’s biggest baked beans factory where science and technology team up to make canned food last for months and years. The trick is in the temperature.

“To make the cans safe, they put them inside this machine a super steam sterilizer. In here the beans are cooked inside… The high temperature kills bacteria stone-dead the food stay safe until the can is open.”

temperature sensor
They also use a “spy can” to confirm that high temperature—120°C (248°F) for three minutes—is being achieved.

According to the video, the H. J. Heinz factory produces five million cans each day, totalling 1.1 billion cans a year. It opened in Wigan, England in 1959.

speeding cans at the factory
Visit a few more factories with videos on TKSST, including:
How does Faber-Castell make pencils?
• Wrapping chocolates at high speeds
• Japanese manhole covers, a factory tour
• Making Matchbox cars in 1960s London – British Pathé
How traditional Nabulsi soap is handmade in the Toukan Soap factory

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