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Canada Agriculture Museum
Collections and Research

Artifact Spotlight

 

Industrial Jam Kettle

ca 1930
2010.

Industrial Jam Kettle
photo: Tom Alföldi

By the 1880s the rise of large urban centres in Canada had created a market for prepared fruit and vegetable products. E. D. Smith, based on Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula, was one of the many companies that set up canning factories to fill the demand. This family firm already had extensive orchard acreage, so selling fruit jams and jellies provided a means of adding value to its farm products.

Jam kettles were arranged in rows and heated by steam from the same large steam engine that provided power for the factory. When the jam was ready, the kettles were tipped and the hot preserve poured into large barrows and wheeled to the bottling room to be put in tins or glass jars. Residents of the nearby community of Winona recalled that they could tell the type of jam being made by just sniffing the air.

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