Francesco Cirio (25 December 1836 – 9 January 1900) was an Italian businessman, and is credited with being one of the first in the world with developing the appertization technique in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. Appertization is the method of processing vegetables that leads to them being canned. The term comes from

Nicolas Appert Nicolas Appert (17 November 1749 – 1 June 1841) was a French confectioner and inventor who, in the early 19th century, invented airtight food preservation. Appert, known as the " father of food science", described his invention as a way "of c ...

, who invented the first process for using heat to sterilize food. Cirio was born in

Nizza Monferrato Nizza Monferrato () is a (municipality) in the Province of Asti in the Italian region of Piedmont, located about southeast of Turin and about southeast of Asti. Nizza Monferrato borders the following municipalities: Calamandrana, Castel Bogli ...

, then part of the

Kingdom of Sardinia The Kingdom of Sardinia, also referred to as the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica among other names, was a State (polity), country in Southern Europe from the late 13th until the mid-19th century, and from 1297 to 1768 for the Corsican part of ...

, to a poor and illiterate family. When he was 14 years old he came to the capital of the kingdom, Turin. In 1856, Cirio started preserving

tomato The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible Berry (botany), berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originate ...

es in

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

cans for them to be exported. He created his own company (later named Cirio), and when he was 20 years old, he started his first factory in Turin. In 1861, he added further plantations and production facilities in Southern Italy. In 1867, Cirio exhibited his products in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

at the Exposition Universelle, where he received prestigious awards. 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 ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

, Berlin,

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, London, Paris, and

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

. Cirio also worked to help the agricultural development of Southern Italy. He died in 1900 at the age of sixty-three

References

External links

Cirio.it – company website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cirio, Francesco 1836 births 1900 deaths People from Nizza Monferrato 19th-century Italian inventors 19th-century Italian businesspeople People from the Kingdom of Sardinia