Could you imagine a life without your trusty fridge? Perhaps one of the most important white goods around, the fridge is responsible for keeping all of your perishable goods preserved, so that they’re fresh and ready for when you need them. But these incredibly useful appliances actually have a surprisingly storied history.
In fact, the fridge that now acts as the centre of your kitchen is actually the culmination of generations of innovation in cooling technology. But what exactly are the origins of the modern fridge as we know it today? And how did our earliest ancestors keep food from spoiling in times before electricity dominated our homes?
Prepare for a trip to the past with the Reliant tech experts. In this guide, we’re going to head back to the earliest origins of refrigeration, to trace the lineage of technological innovation that led to the modern fridge that you know and love!
Ancient Fridges
For as long as humanity has existed, we’ve needed to find ways to preserve our food. Even our earliest ancestors! Because food preservation has always been such a key part of the human experience, it can be tough to pin down the exact origins of refrigeration as we know it today.
Ancient civilisations had to be very resourceful when storing food and drink. They had to carefully consider the local climate, as well as the natural resources that they had nearby. For instance, some ancient civilisations utilised nearby bodies of water, by submerging certain goods to keep them cool.
Icehouses
Icehouses and iceboxes were incredibly prevalent across numerous ancient civilisations. These can most closely be linked to the fridges that we recognise today. Iceboxes varied massively across cultures, especially depending on the local climate, and what natural resources were around. Cultures in colder environments would often cut large cubes of fresh ice from rivers and lakes, and place them in icehouses. The immense cold from this ice would then be used to keep food and drink cool!
Icehouses could be found in many ancient civilisations. They were filled with fresh ice, most often cut from a river or lake. This helped to keep all of the contained food nice and fresh!
To keep icehouses cool, they were often insulated with straw and sawdust. This kept the cold air in and kept any warm air out. This was particularly useful in areas where temperatures could fluctuate suddenly. Insulation is still an incredibly important part of refrigeration, to keep our fridges at the optimal temperature no matter how much the weather changes!
Iceboxes were essentially smaller versions of icehouses. These were packed with harvested ice, and filled with food and drink. Iceboxes were very reminiscent of modern-day fridges in terms of their form and function. With time, iceboxes were mass-produced, eventually leading to the fridges that we now recognise. But there’s still plenty of history before then!
Other Preservation Methods
Cooling isn’t the only way to preserve food, however. In fact, many early civilisations quickly realised that foods could be preserved in countless other ways!
Many cultures that didn’t have direct access to fresh ice instead chose to dry their food for preservation. When food is dried, it saps away all of the moisture. This means that there’s nothing for bacteria to latch to, or for mould to develop on. Many cultures simply left food to dry in the sun for a few hours at a time!
Drying was also often followed up by salting. As the name suggests, salting involves coating food, most often meat, with salt. This not only helps to sap any lingering moisture but also massively slows down the decomposition process, as it keeps germs from propagating.
Many civilisations also used smoke. The high temperatures of smoke kept insects at bay and also imparted a unique flavour to the food.
Drying, salting, and smoking are actually practices that are still observed to this day. Cured meat is still very much a delicacy across the world, and is created following many early principles!
Iranian Yakhchals
It would be impossible to talk about the origins of refrigeration without mentioning the all-important yakhchal. Yakhchals are unique domed icehouses that not only preserve food but can also generate ice. They were particularly useful in their native Iran, where the climate could very often reach extreme temperatures.
Ancient records suggest that yakhchals were first constructed as early as 400 BCE. This makes them some of the earliest recorded refrigerators in human history. In fact, they’re still very much used to this day! As we hinted at in the paragraph above, what makes yakhchals unique is their ability to produce fresh ice.
Yakhchals themselves have a conical shape. This allows hot air to escape upwards out of the structure. Cool air is allowed in thanks to small entryways at the bottom. The cold air stays firmly trapped within, while hot air escapes. Because the local environment around yakhchals is naturally low in humidity, it makes it easier for cold air to radiate throughout the structure. Yakhchals also make use of “Sarooj” walls, which are made up of sand, clay, and other materials to create immense insulation.
Yakhchals form ice in special ice ponds. To do this, they make use of shade walls which protect the pool from direct sunlight. In the winter months, nighttime temperatures can drop below zero, which results in ice forming in the pools. This ice is then gathered, and stored directly within the yakhchal, where it is preserved for months at a time thanks to the specialised insulation and engineering of the structure!
The impact of yakhchals is so significant that many people in Iran still use “Yakhchal” to refer to modern refrigerators!
Artificial Cooling Discovered
But how did we go from icehouses and iceboxes to the fridges that we now have in our homes? In order to draw a link between ancient cooling methods and modern fridges, we’ll have to take a look at the history of artificial cooling!
William Cullen – 1755
Artificial cooling can generally be traced back to the year 1755. In this year a Scottish professor by the name of William Cullen discovered that rapidly evaporating liquids generated cold air. He discovered this after creating a refrigerating device that boiled diethyl ether. As the ether evaporated and turned into a gas, it released cold air. In fact, some of Cullen’s experiments also led to the formation of ice.
Despite this immense breakthrough, Cullen actually did very little with his findings. And it took another 100 years for the process of evaporation to be put to practical use!
James Harrison – 1850s
After nearly 100 years of innovation, by the 1850s, journalist James Harrison had created a patent for the first practical application of artificial cooling. He started in 1851 by creating an ice-making machine, which he showed off in Victoria, Australia. After tweaking the design slightly, he released the first commercial ice-makers in 1854.
Over the following years, he would also create refrigerators that were a little closer to the kind we recognise today. By the turn of the next decade, many of Harrison’s ice-makers and refrigerators were already being used across Australia! However, because early refrigerators were still very bulky, it would still be some time before they would be used in homes.
Across the 1850s and 1860s, countless innovators patented unique ice-making and refrigeration devices. Many of these made use of a compression system, which converted gases into liquids as part of the cooling process. Many of these proved influential over the years to come.
Electric Refrigerators
With the introduction of electricity, the world of refrigeration saw another significant shift in technology. Now, fridges could utilise electricity to help aid in evaporation and compression systems to keep fridges cool. It also allowed fridges to now operate continuously, so users could keep their food fresh for much longer!
The use of electricity also allowed refrigerators to operate without the need for highly flammable and often toxic chemicals. Early refrigerators were often noted to explode, catch fire, or even to leak their harmful gases. This made them totally unviable for homes. As we mentioned above, despite innovations in refrigeration, it would take many more years for refrigerators to enter our homes!
The First Commercial Fridges
One of the first commercially-available fridges was produced in 1911, by the General Electric company. This type of fridge still made use of gas, which eliminated the need for a motor, and also allowed the unit to be very compact. The trouble was, as explored above, gas-based refrigerators were generally quite unsafe. So, in 1927 General Electric released the first commercially-available electric refrigerator.
Over the following years, General Electric, and the company’s closest competitor Freon, would innovate their fridges. New models were released every few years, and as time passed, more and more households started adopting these nifty devices.
It took until 1927 for the first commercial electric fridges to enter the market. Until then, fridges were largely gas-powered. They were also incredibly large, and often prone to fires or other issues!
Thanks to frequent innovation from both companies, fridges also became much smaller, and much cheaper to mass produce. As a result, the average cost of a fridge dropped significantly, making them much more accessible.
By the 1940s, refrigerators had quickly become a staple in many American households. In the following decades after that, refrigerators also became much more accessible across the world.
Early Refrigerators In The UK
In the UK, it took until around the late 1950s for fridges to really take off. However, one fateful summer would prove incredibly important for the adoption of fridges in the UK.
In the summer of 1959, the UK was subjected to one of the hottest periods on record. Up until the 1950s, most UK households did not use refrigerators. Instead, they made use of cold slabs, which were commonly found in pantries. These were incredibly useful as they did not need to be powered, and naturally maintained a cool temperature. This was fantastic for the often mild-weathered UK.
However, the summer of 1959 was so hot that cold slabs simply weren’t able to maintain cold temperatures. This led to massive amounts of food spoiling in no time in homes across the UK. Faced with the prospect of spoiled food for the rest of the summer, many Britons found themselves tempted by the prospect of continuously cool refrigerators. This led directly to a massive boom for fridges in the UK!
Moving Into The Present
With fridges now popular in homes across the world, more and more companies began investing in the technology. This meant that the market was now flooded with all kinds of different models. And with so much competition in the market, companies were now incentivised to innovate.
Fridges have changed a lot in the years since they were first introduced. Let’s take a look at some of the most significant innovations!
Frost-Free Technology
By the 1950s, many fridge owners across America had grown tired of constantly defrosting their fridges. Though fridges were fantastic for maintaining a consistent internal temperature, they often ended up so cold that frost naturally built up inside as a result of the moisture from food and drink.
To help account for this, major manufacturers introduced automatic defrosting functions that kept frost at bay. Nowadays, frost-free technology is almost a staple in the modern fridge, to help save us the trouble of defrosting!
Ice Makers
The 1950s was a decade defined by convenience. Automation became the goal for many homeowners, with the prospect of a self-sufficient home proving particularly alluring. One of the innovations found in refrigerators around this time was the automatic ice maker. These handy features could continuously generate fresh ice, to give users quick access to chilled drinks in the summer!
Fridge Freezers
Freezers were first introduced between the 1930s and 1940s, but much like early fridges, they were often incredibly bulky and space-consuming. As such, manufacturers began investing in fridge freezer technology, to create combo appliances that have both fridge and freezer compartments.
Water Dispensers
Water dispensers are now found on a number of premium fridge models. They allow for quick and convenient access to chilled water without having to open the fridge doors. This helps to save plenty of electricity from being wasted because none of that cold air will escape!
Water dispensers have gone through something of an evolution themselves. They were once quite unwieldy, and very prone to failure. Nowadays, however, water dispensers are incredibly robust, and can deliver quick access to chilled water at the touch of a button.
Energy Efficiency
Early refrigerators used a massive amount of electricity to maintain low temperatures. Across the decades, however, manufacturers have worked tirelessly to make them more energy efficient than ever. In the 1990s, pressure was placed on manufacturers to lower the energy consumption of fridges and freezers. Now, a fridge that might have once consumed up to 2200 kWh a year in the 1970s might only consume between 200 to 500 kWh a year!
Fridges are now much more efficient than they once were. It’s also much easier for consumers to see how much energy their fridges are consuming. So they can actively curb their spending!
The introduction of energy ratings also allowed consumers to see exactly how much energy a fridge would use before they purchased it. Perfect for reining in energy bills!
Smart Fridges And The Future
For many of us, the fridge is the heart of the home. It’s not just a place to store our food but also a perfect surface to display notes and reminders for the whole family. The 2010s saw fridges evolve in a number of significant ways to help make them even more useful. Perhaps most important of all, the 2010s saw the widespread introduction of smart fridges!
Smart Fridges
It’s easy to trace the evolutionary lineage between standard fridges and smart fridges. Many smart fridge features were expressly designed to help them more easily act as the heart of the home. Some top models come with touch-screen interfaces built into their doors. These can be used collaboratively by members of the household to display notes or reminders. They can also be used to display digital photographs without needing any fridge magnets!
Smart fridges also allow us to stock up on food more intelligently. Smart fridges with digital interfaces allow users to type up digital grocery lists that can then be sent to a smartphone. Some models even come with cameras built into the main storage compartment, so you can see exactly what you have in stock from your phone, without having to let any of the cold air out.
Certain smart fridges can even be connected directly to the user’s smartphone! For instance, most Samsung fridges can be connected directly to the SmartThings network, and thus to the user’s smartphone. This then enables them to interface directly with the fridge from anywhere in the world. Via SmartThings, users can control the fridge temperature, keep track of food, and even perform basic maintenance and troubleshooting!
Smart fridges have totally changed the way we store our favourite foods. But how could they possibly advance further from here? Let’s take a quick glimpse into the future of refrigeration!
The Future Of Refrigeration
With artificial intelligence becoming more and more prominent across the world of tech, it’s likely that we might see AI showing up in our fridges and other appliances. AI can perform a number of excellent functions that can help to make our smart fridges that little bit smarter. It will also help to make the user experience much more personalised.
One important way AI may be implemented into fridges is through personalised dietary advice. Our fridges will be able to understand our current dietary habits to then make recommendations to ensure we meet all of our dietary requirements. These fridges can then connect to the internet to link us directly to unique recipes, or even to order ingredients then and there!
AI is poised to play a huge role in our homes moving forward. AI will allow our smart appliances to learn from how we use them, to provide a more personalised experience that suits our individual needs!
It may also be used to improve voice controls on our fridges. These will make it easier to control the appliance without having to touch a single button.
AI may also be implemented to help improve the function of our fridges. The AI will be able to measure and detect any slight fluctuations in fridge temperature. Once detected, it can then account for the fluctuation almost immediately to return the unit to the right temperature!
It’s also likely that fridges will continue to be more and more energy efficient. Compared to the earliest commercial models, modern fridges are now incredibly energy efficient, and carefully control energy wastage!
Frequently Asked Questions
What Did People Use Before Fridges?
Before fridges populated our kitchens, we often had to take advantage of local environmental conditions. In colder climates, many cultures used to submerge their foods underwater in lakes and rivers. Other cultures also created icehouses, which were strongly insulated, and were filled with freshly-cut ice from local bodies of water!
When Were Fridges Introduced To The UK?
Fridges were first introduced to the UK during the 1920s. However, it really took some time for UK homes to begin adopting them. This is because they were expensive, loud, and often very bulky. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that fridges began to surge in popularity across the UK, after a particularly sweltering season in the summer of 1959!
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