Francesco Cirio
Encyclopedia
Canning
Canning is a method of preserving food in which the food contents are processed and sealed in an airtight container. Canning provides a typical shelf life ranging from one to five years, although under specific circumstances a freeze-dried canned product, such as canned, dried lentils, can last as...
vegetables and meat.
He was born in Nizza Monferrato
Nizza Monferrato
Nizza Monferrato is a comune in the Province of Asti in the Italian region of Piedmont, located about 60 km southeast of Turin and about 20 km southeast of Asti....
, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia
Kingdom of Sardinia
The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia first as a part of the Crown of Aragon and subsequently the Spanish Empire , and second as a part of the composite state of the House of Savoy . Its capital was originally Cagliari, in the south of the island, and later Turin, on the...
, to a poor and illiterate family. When he was 14 years old he came to the capital of the kingdom, Turin. A few years later he invented canned vegetables and meat because he wanted to export food from the Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
.
At the end of the year 1856, he created his own company (later named Cirio
Cirio
Cirio S.p.A. is a major Italian food company.It was founded in 1856 in Turin, Italy....
) in order to produce these canned vegetables and meat and obtained several prizes at the Universal Exhibition in Paris (1867). The company was transformed in 1885 into Societa Anonima di Esportazione Agricola Francesco Cirio in Turin. This company very soon opened subsidiaries in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, Berlin, Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, London, Paris, and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. For the rest of his life, Cirio worked at boosting the agricultural development of Southern Italy.