Food process engineering

The use of fire and then pottery were decisive steps in food processing. Man then learned to dry food to preserve it, and to extract salt from seawater, both to improve the taste of these products and to improve their preservation.

Initially confined to the family, some of these activities became artisanal specialties as a result of sedentarization, urbanization and the development of trade: processing cereals into flour, extracting oil, curing meat and fish, making fermented beverages, and so on. It was in the 19th century, with the rapid development of cities, industry and transport, that some of these trades took on an industrial character: sugar mills, oil mills, breweries, distilleries, canneries, cookie factories, and so on....