Un goût nouveau pour le premier aliment industriel, la sardine à l’huile

Abstract

Why are some industry and food innovations successful while so many others fail ? As regards tinned sardines in oil, their success was probably certain because they had been luxury goods for decades, since their invention around 1820. It was not until the eve of the First World War that they became more common. What was that success due to? It was due to three factors: the product, the manufacturers and the market. The product was innovative in many aspects: it was a ready-made meal, for any place and circumstance, it kept without problems, and its taste had nothing to do with salted and pressed sardines which were the poor man’s sardines. As far as the manufacturers were concerned, the situation was as favourable. The end of the slave trade provided the port areas of Nantes and Bordeaux with their manufacturing and trade traditions, with the opportunity to launch into new economic activity. As for the market, it offered two potential outlets: wealthy fringe groups throughout the world and French government institutions, particularly the Navy. Very quickly, the share of canned sardines for export came up to more than three quarters of the production, while the technical progress of the business, the increasing number of factories and the prospect of enticing profits allowed a tremendous increase in tonnage. A genuine industry was set up on the French Atlantic coast.