In 1912, a young American scientist, Clarence Birdseye, departed on a fur-trading expedition to Labrador in Canada. While he was there, he noticed that the local Eskimos kept their fish fresh in winter by freezing them in the ice. He was intrigued to find that the fish retained their flavour and did not deteriorate. He wondered whether the same process could be applied to other foodstuffs and developed on a commercial scale.
Birdseye returned to the USA and worked on this idea. He developed a ‘Quick Freeze Machine’, which copied the method used by the Eskimos. The machine worked for a range of foods, including fruit and vegetables. In 1924, Birdseye launched the world’s first frozen-food company, the General Seafood Corporation. His surname became the brand name and trademark for his products. His key new invention was the double belt freezer that froze fish quickly as they moved on a pair of stainless steel belts. He patented this invention, which subsequently was adopted by many other companies.
In 1929, his company was bought by General Foods, which kept the Birds Eye trademark, turning it into two words. Clarence worked there as President of the Birds Eye Frosted Foods division and, over the next decade, he and his company changed the way Americans stored and cooked food.
During his lifetime, Birdseye patented more than 300 inventions, including a process for dehydrating food. He introduced refrigerated wagons so that Birds Eye could distribute frozen products all over the country.
Clarence Birdseye was born in New York in 1886, the sixth of nine children. As a boy, he had a keen interest in nature, botany and science. His parents could not afford a college education for him so he took a job as a taxidermist. He then worked as a government field naturalist for the US Biological Survey. He supplemented his income with fur trading, which led him to Canada and his great discovery. He died in 1956 by which time frozen food was a massive industry worldwide.
Look outside for ideas. Solve your problem by adapting a concept that works somewhere else. Birdseye would not have produced his innovation if he had stayed in New York. He saw an idea in a completely different environment, a snowy wilderness, and adapted it for widespread use in an urban environment. He knew that people in cities needed supplies of healthy, fresh food.
Be curious about how other people in different places use technology and solve problems. Curiosity and risk taking are two of the hallmarks of innovators. Birdseye said, ‘I do not consider myself a remarkable person. I am just a guy with a very large bump of curiosity and a gambling instinct.’
Patent your inventions. Birdseye secured his fortune by protecting his designs with patents.