Canning

How it is used

Covers filling, removing air, seaming or capping, retort processing and cooling. Low-acid foods such as beans and meat need a full botulinum cook, while acidic foods such as tomatoes and fruit need milder heat. 'Canned food' is the US and international term; British English often says 'tinned'.

Example sentences

1. Canning lets us sell summer vegetables all year round without refrigeration.

2. Swollen cans are a warning sign of under-processing during canning.

Common collocations

• canning line
• canned food
• retort processing
• double seam
• home canning

Related terms

• sterilizationA treatment, usually with high heat, that destroys microorganisms and their spores so that a food can be stored at room temperature without spoiling or becoming unsafe.
• Clostridium botulinumA spore-forming bacterium that grows without oxygen and produces botulinum toxin, one of the strongest known poisons, which causes the rare but potentially fatal illness botulism.
• D-valueThe time needed at a given temperature to kill 90 percent of a population of a particular microorganism, which is a one-log reduction.
• pHA scale from 0 to 14 that shows how acidic or alkaline a food or solution is; 7 is neutral, lower values are acidic and higher values are alkaline.
• heat treatmentAny process that uses heat to make food safe, extend its shelf life or change its properties, such as pasteurization, sterilization, blanching or cooking.

More terms: Preservation and Heat Treatment

• pasteurization
• refrigeration
• freezing
• drying
• UHT