Forwards or Backwards

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The Technology That Made Food Travel

Published · 12 min

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A strawberry in winter, fish from another ocean, lettuce from another continent: almost all of it depends on one idea. Keep food cold, and keep it cold the whole way. This video follows how that chain of cold was built, and what it costs.

In February 1806 Frederic Tudor sent 130 tons of Boston pond ice to Martinique, and lost $4,500. In 1834 Jacob Perkins patented a machine that could make ice continuously; in 1873 and 1877 Carl von Linde built refrigerating machines for breweries. We explain the refrigeration loop that every fridge still uses.

Then meat crossed the oceans: Le Frigorifique in 1876, the Paraguay in 1877, and the sailing ship Dunedin, which left Port Chalmers on 15 February 1882 and reached London 98 days later with nearly 5,000 frozen carcasses. On land, Gustavus Swift's ice-cooled rail wagon (designed by Andrew Chase, 1878) and Frederick McKinley Jones's truck refrigeration unit (patent filed 1939, granted 1942). Clarence Birdseye, and why freezing fast keeps food good.

And the cost. The FAO estimates 13.3% of food was lost between harvest and shop in 2023, with no apparent progress since 2015. FAO and UNEP found that a lack of refrigeration loses 526 million tonnes of food a year, 12% of global production. Refrigeration uses about 20% of the world's electricity (IIR, 2025); the Montreal Protocol (1987) and Kigali Amendment (2016) changed the gases inside the machines. Finally the latest: UNEP's Global Cooling Watch 2025, the US EPA's May 2026 rule giving cold storage warehouses until 2032, and the Global Cooling Pledge meeting of September 2026.

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Educational documentary. Not financial or investment advice.

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Chapters

  1. A strawberry in winter
  2. Selling ice to the tropics
  3. A machine that makes cold
  4. Meat across the oceans
  5. Cold on wheels
  6. Freezing it fast
  7. How the chain works today
  8. Where the chain breaks
  9. The cost of cold
  10. What happens now

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Sources and credits

Primary sources

  • FAO and UNEP, 'Amid food and climate crises, investing in sustainable food cold chains crucial', press release, 12 November 2022 (unep.org), for the report 'Sustainable Food Cold Chains' - 526 million tonnes / 12%; 144 million tonnes; food cold chain about 4% of global GHG; Inger Andersen's quote.
  • FAO SDG Indicators Data Portal, '12.3.1 Global food losses' (fao.org), estimate for 2023 released with the FAO SDG progress report of 25 September 2025 - 13.3% in 2023, 13.0% in 2015, 'no apparent progress'.
  • UNEP, 'World squanders over 1 billion meals a day', press release, 27 March 2024 (Food Waste Index Report 2024) - 1.05 billion tonnes in 2022, almost one-fifth of food available to consumers.
  • National Geographic, Rebecca Rupp, 'Frederic Tudor: The King of Ice', 19 July 2014; Wikipedia, 'Frederic Tudor' - Favorite, 10 February 1806, Martinique, 130 tons, $4,500 loss, ice houses in India.
  • ASME landmark, 'Perkins vapor-compression cycle for refrigeration'; Grace's Guide, 'Jacob Perkins' - British patent of 14 August 1834.
  • Wikipedia, 'Carl von Linde'; ingenieur.de, 26 August 2024 - methyl ether machine for Spaten, 1873; ammonia machine at the Dreher brewery, 1877.
  • Revue Sesame (INRAE), 23 May 2024; Wikipedia, 'Charles Tellier' - Le Frigorifique 1876, methyl ether, 105 days; the Paraguay 1877, 5,500 frozen carcasses.
  • RNZ, 'Meat industry celebrates 140 years since first frozen shipment to the UK', 24 May 2022; Te Ara and NZ History (search excerpts) - Dunedin left Port Chalmers 15 February 1882, 98 days, 4,311 sheep and 598 lambs, Bell-Coleman machinery; Lloyd's Register Foundation Heritage Centre, 26 June 2019.
  • Wikipedia, 'Gustavus Franklin Swift' - Andrew Chase, 1878; first cars 1880.
  • Google Patents, US 2,303,857 (Numero and Jones), filed 16 November 1939, granted 1 December 1942; National Inventors Hall of Fame, 'Frederick McKinley Jones' - 1991 National Medal of Technology.
  • Wikipedia, 'Clarence Birdseye'; Mass Moments (Mass Humanities), 'Clarence Birdseye tests frozen food' - Labrador 1912-1915, $22 million sale 1929, 6 March 1930. Penn State Extension, 'Understanding the Process of Freezing', updated 21 April 2026 - ice crystal size.
  • Maersk, 'Refrigerated Containers - Reefers', 21 February 2019 - first generation reefers in the 1960s.
  • Food Standards Agency, 'How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely' (gov.uk), 18 December 2017 - fridge 0 to 5 C, freezer around -18 C.
  • International Institute of Refrigeration, 'The Role of Refrigeration in the Global Economy', 3rd edition, technical brief, 15 April 2025 - 5.4 billion systems, 20% of electricity.
  • UNEP, 'World takes a stand against powerful greenhouse gases with implementation of Kigali Amendment', 3 January 2019 - in force 1 January 2019; up to 0.4 C avoided; UNEP Ozone Secretariat, 'The Kigali Amendment: An overview', 25 February 2026.
  • UNEP, Global Cooling Watch 2025 press release, 11 November 2025 - cooling demand could more than triple by 2050; 7.2 billion tonnes CO2e by 2050 without action.
  • US EPA, 'Regulatory Actions - Technology Transitions' (epa.gov), final rule published 26 May 2026; Holland & Knight, 26 May 2026 - cold storage warehouses 1 January 2026 to 1 January 2032; supermarket systems 2032.
  • UNEP, 'Cool Leaders, roadmap and Nature for Cooling: Global Cooling Pledge acts', press release, 17 September 2026.

Not regulated financial advice.