Sweetened condensed milk
Leche condensada azucarada
- Date
- 1853-1856 · confidence high
- Place
- Wolcottville (Torrington), Connecticut, United States
- Credited to
- Gail Borden
- People
- 👤 Gail Borden1801–1874
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Milk evaporated under vacuum and sweetened, which kept for months in a can without refrigeration. It addressed infant mortality from contaminated milk in the cities and fed the Union army.
1856 patent; Borden was inspired by the vacuum evaporator used by the Shakers of New Lebanon.
What it led to
- Safer infant feeding in cities
- The dairy industry (Borden, Anglo-Swiss, Nestlé)
- Military rations in the American Civil War
- Milk consumption in tropical regions without dairy farming
Built on
- Canning (Appert method and tin can)1804-1810
- Industrial milk pasteurization1886–1908
- Tin canning
- Vacuum evaporator (Howard, 1813)