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Clarence Birdseye Facts & Worksheets

Clarence Birdseye was an American inventor who is considered to be the founder of the modern frozen food industry when he found a way to flash-freeze food.

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Clarence Birdseye was an American inventor who is considered to be the founder of the modern frozen food industry when he found a way to flash-freeze food. Aside from being an inventor, he was also an entrepreneur and naturalist.

See the fact file below for more information on the Clarence Birdseye or alternatively, you can download our 21-page Clarence Birdseye worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

  • Being the sixth of nine children, Clarence Birdseye was born on December 9, 1886, in Brooklyn, New York.
  • His parents were Ada Jane Underwood and Clarence Frank Birdseye I, a lawyer at an insurance firm.
  • Ever since childhood, Birdseye was obsessed with natural science and taxidermy.
  • At the age of 14, his family moved to the suburb of Montclair, New Jersey, where Birdseye graduated from Montclair High School.
  • He was briefly a student at Amherst College but dropped out after two years because he and his family did not have the funds for college.
  • Birdseye moved out west to work for the United States Agriculture Department.
  • He started his working career as a taxidermist.
  • He later got a position in Arizona and New Mexico as an assistant naturalist.
  • This job required him to kill coyotes as the agency was concerned with helping farmers and ranchers get rid of predators, chiefly coyotes.
  • He also worked with Willard Van Orsdel King, an entomologist, in 1910 and 1911.
  • His work involved trapping several hundred small mammals from which King would remove ticks for research purposes. This research proved that ticks were the cause of Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
  • Birdseye’s next field assignment was intermittent from 1912 to 1915. This assignment was in Labrador in the Dominion of Newfoundland (now part of Canada) as a fur trapper and to carry out a fish and wildlife survey.
  • This is where he developed an interest in food preservation by freezing, especially fast freezing.
  • Birdseye had some contact with the Inuit, and they taught him how to ice fish underneath very thick ice layers.
  • In the -40°C weather, he found that the fish was iced rapidly and tasted fresh when thawed.
  • He recognized immediately that the frozen seafood available in New York was of poorer quality compared to the frozen fish enjoyed in Labrador.
  • He chose to apply his newly found knowledge to start a business.

BIRDSEYE FLASH-FREEZING METHOD

  • In 1922, Birdseye conducted fish-freezing experiments at the Clothel Refrigerating Company and later built his own company named Birdseye Seafoods Inc.
  • In 1924, his new company went bankrupt due to a lack of consumer interest in his product.
  • Undaunted, Birdseye created General Seafood Corporation to promote a new method that same year.
  • He developed a completely new process for commercially viable quick-freezing that includes packing fish in cartons, then freezing the contents between two refrigerated surfaces under pressure.

DEVELOPMENT OF HIS INVENTION

  • In 1925, General Seafood Corporation moved to Gloucester, Massachusetts, where it marketed and sold the newest invention of Birdseye, the double belt freezer.
  • His invention was issued US Patent #1,773,079, which is marked by some as the beginning of today’s frozen foods industry.
  • He extended the process to quick-freezing meat, poultry, fruit, and vegetables in 1927.
  • Birdseye sold his company and patents for $22 million in 1929 to Goldman Sachs and the Postum Company, which ultimately became General Foods Corporation. General Foods founded the Birds Eye Frozen Food Company.
  • Clarence Birdseye continued to work for the company as a consultant and continued to invent and develop new frozen food technology.
  • In 1930, the company started sales experiments to examine consumer acceptance of quick-frozen foods.
  • This quick-frozen food included 18 cuts of frozen meat, spinach, peas, a variety of fruits and berries, blue point oysters, and fish fillets.
  • Consumers loved the new products, and today this is regarded as the birth of retail frozen foods.
  • Birds Eye continues to be a leading frozen-food brand.
  • In 1949, Clarence Birdseye became the 2nd winner of the Institute of Food Technologists’ Babcock-Hart Award.
  • In 2005, Birdseye was inducted into the Lists of National Inventors Hall of Fame.

PERSONAL LIFE AND DEATH

  • In 1915, Birdseye married Eleanor Garrett while living in Labrador, and they had one son named Kellogg.
  • Birdseye died of a heart attack at the Gramercy Park Hotel on October 7, 1956, at the age of 69.
  • Birdseye was cremated, then his ashes were scattered at sea in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Clarence Birdseye Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the Clarence Birdseye across 21 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Clarence Birdseye worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Clarence Birdseye who was an American inventor who is considered to be the founder of the modern frozen food industry when he found a way to flash-freeze food. Aside from being an inventor, he was also an entrepreneur and naturalist.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Clarence Birdseye Facts
  • Quick Freeze Facts
  • Quick Bio
  • Key Facts
  • Significant Dates
  • Career Life
  • Freezing Foods
  • The Fast Freeze Founder
  • Birds Eye Products
  • Pros and Cons
  • Birdseye Postage Stamp

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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