A brief history of gelatin manufacturing

In an age where making it to ‘old age’ carried few guarantees, our cave-dwelling and later Egyptian ancestors were extracting a primitive form of gelatin by boiling down animal hide and bone to make a ‘collagen or glutin glue’ for clothes, furniture and tools that could be the difference between life and death in harsh climates and living conditions.

The ancient Egyptians also cooked up bone-based broths and discovered certain extractions when cooled could be eaten – probably the first time gelatin was produced as a particular foodstuff.

They may not have known it, but these ancients were conducting a primitive form of what we today know as ‘partially hydrolyzing collagen’.

By the Middle Ages food and nutrition links moved to the fore; gelatin-rich deer antler or calves’ feet broth extracts were being touted for their positive effect on joint health by the medical experts of the period.

The Medieval Period saw the jelly-like extracts that were by-products of cooking various meats become popular, often sweetened and flavored and served as desserts.

But this process was laborious and thus usually confined to the aristocracy – who could pay servants to do it – until the Renaissance when French mathematician Denis Papin invented the pressure cooker in 1682. The pressure cooker, or ‘digester’ as it was called, meant bones could be boiled down more efficiently to make sheets or leaves of gelatin jelly that could be “used as a general foodstuff for the people” as Papin himself said.

As early as 1754 the first patent for gelatin processing was granted in the UK.

By the Napoleonic wars of the early 1800s, the ‘little general’ himself commissioned research into gelatin’s potential to serve as an alternative protein source for his armies when meat was scarce, which it frequently was during the seemingly endless European wars of that period.

Raw collagen-sourced gelatin had come a long way from its origins as a primitive glue but the 19^th century really transformed gelatin processing and applications, and saw a legitimate and sizeable industrial age sector emerge.

Industrialized gelatin for glue was produced for the first time in Lyon in central eastern France in 1818.

In the pharma world, 1834 saw French chemist Francois Mothes earn a patent for gelatin capsules to mask the bitter flavor of many drugs and medicines and simultaneously protect them from degradation.

In 1847 Londoner James Murdock developed a hard-divided gelatin capsule – but it would be another 50+ years before mass-produced gelatin capsules would revolutionize the pharmaceutical sector with the vast potential of encapsulated powdered medicines.

In food, a US patent was granted for gelatin powder in 1845 that could be used in any kitchen to make gelatin desserts. Half a century later this gelatin form was taken up by the Jell-O firm in New York which became a culinary icon in 20^th century America and abroad.

All this meant that by the late 1800s gelatin sheets, leaves, blocks and powders were being mass produced for their adhesive, food and pharma purposes.

Gelatin was proving to be a highly versatile substance, integral to these industries – and new applications were rapidly being discovered.

Around this time, production refinements allowed pure gelatin emulsion plates to help popularize photography (and x-rays) by simplifying what had been an expensive, time-consuming and inconsistent photo development process.

As the 1900s rolled into view, food applications like lozenges, jellies and gummy bears took advantage of gelatin processing refinements and its unique taste and odor-neutral gelling and thickening properties as economies of scale kicked in after decades of experimentation.

Sales quickly exploded with most of the world’s high-quality gelatin being supplied out of French and German sites.

Supplement, pharma and cosmetic applications exploded too with the likes of gelatin tablets, gelatin capsules, gelatin ointments and gelatin emulsions in the medical and beauty arenas.

US drug maker Eli Lilly, which had been using gelatin in some of its capsules since 1897, debuted the world’s first automated production line for hard gelatin capsules in 1913.

By 1930 soft gelatin capsules were being mass produced by soft-fill machines, and other innovations like gelatin-coated tablets came onstream, further popularizing gelatin use.