Pineapple tin

The 1911 pineapple price is for the smaller of the two sizes of can sold by Sainsbury's, which probably weighed about 12ozs-1lb. The can illustrated is slightly later and contained pineapple chunks imported from Singapore, the main source of this fruit in the early part of the twentieth century. Canning was an expensive process which was labour intensive because the fruit was picked and packed by hand. Their highly acidic nature meant that the shelf-life of pineapples was shorter than that of other fruits, particularly until the interwar years, when canners began to lacquer the inside of the tins.