A brief history of gelatin manufacturing

From cave-dweller concoctions to global best sellers: A brief history of gelatin

The origins of gelatin

Long before gelatin derived its name from the Latin 'gelare' (to freeze) thousands of years ago, pre-modern homo sapiens discovered the substance by cooking animal bones and hides to create a highly valuable jelly-like substance.

 

In an era 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 glue (for use in clothes, furniture and tools) to help sustain life in harsh climates and living conditions.

 

Ancient Egyptians also cooked bone-based broths and discovered that certain extractions (when cooled) created a primitive form of partially hydrolyzing collagen that could be eaten. This was probably the first time gelatin was produced as a particular foodstuff.

 

The Middle Ages: Using gelatin in food

By the Middle Ages, gelatin-rich deer antler or calves’ feet broth extracts were being touted for positive effects on joint health by medical experts.

 

During Medieval times, jelly-like extracts that were by-products of cooking various meats, often sweetened and flavored became popular desserts.

 

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, enabled bones to be boiled efficiently to produce sheets or leaves of gelatin jelly that could be used as a general foodstuff.

 

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

 

By the early 1800s, Napolean commissioned research into gelatin’s potential to serve as an alternative protein source for soldiers when meat was scarce.

 

The 19th century: Gelatin use comes of age

In the 19th century, gelatin processing and applications transformed into a sizeable industry.

 

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

 

In the pharmaceutical world in 1834, French chemist Francois Mothes earned a patent for gelatin capsules to mask the bitter flavor of many drugs and medicines, while simultaneously protecting 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 the food sector, a US patent was granted in 1845 for gelatin powder that could be used in any kitchen to make gelatin desserts. Half a century later, the Jell-O firm in New York became a 20th century culinary icon by selling gelatin in this form.

 

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

 

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.

 

Rousselot was a pioneer in the field, producing multi-purpose, collagen-extracted gelatin, sourced from mostly porcine and bovine materials, from its newly established French base in the 1890s.

 

As of  2021, Rousselot is the world’s biggest gelatin supplier.¹

 

20th century: Mass production expands gelatin application

At the start of the 1900s, food applications like lozenges, jellies and gummy bears leveraged gelatin processing refinements and gelatin’s unique taste and odor-neutral gelling and thickening properties.

 

Sales quickly exploded, with most of the world’s high-quality gelatin being supplied out of France and Germany.

 

Supplement, pharma and cosmetic applications grew thanks to gelatin tablets, gelatin capsules, gelatin ointments and gelatin emulsions in medical and beauty industries.

 

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

 

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

 

Gelatin in war times

Gelatin performed an important role in World War I where it was sometimes used as a substitute for intravenous blood-boosting plasma solutions to treat the wounded (plasma was often in short supply²). Many lives were saved with gelatin used in this way.

 

Gelatin-based capsules and other pharmacologicals were popular in World War I, and gelatin was used in pills to treat soldiers’ pain.³

 

Gelatin-based ‘jelly babies’ were popularized when British confectionery maker Bassett’s commemorated the November 1918 World War I armistice by releasing “Peace Babies.”

 

World War II devastated the European gelatin industry with many factories damaged or destroyed in bombing raids, even as demand for photographic gelatin grew due to its strategic importance to military operations.

 

Post-war: Gelatin evolves

The gelatin industry quickly recovered post-war and moved into a period of growth in the post-war period which continues, with food and food supplements (59%) and pharma (31%) applications remaining dominant⁴, as of publication of this blog.

 

Gelatin glue remains popular for certain uses, due to its heating and cooling flexibility and phenomenal strength – up to 1.6 tons per square centimeter. It is a favorite of musical instrument makers and document preservers, among others.

 

An ever-widening array of niche applications for gelatins is emerging including:

 

Sensitive pharma applications

• vaccines
• plasma substitutes
• surgical sponges
• femoral plugs
• hemostats
• vaccines
• stem cell therapy agents
• in-lab bacteria cages

 

Technical applications

• technical applications
• forensics gels
• glues for restoring books
• laundry whiteners
• paint binding agents
• plant fertilizers

 

Novel food applications

• beverage clarifiers

 

Trade groups have enabled the industry to promote collaboration and pool knowledge; develop and communicate science; advocate for appropriate regulations; and ensure products of the highest quality.

 

These include the Gelatine Manufacturers of Europe (GME) in 1974; the Gelatin Manufacturer Association of South America (SAGMA) in 1995; the Gelatine Manufacturers Association of Asia Pacific (GMAP) in 1996 and, in recent years, the Gelatin Manufacturers Association of Japan (GMJ) and the Gelatin Manufacturers Institute of America (GMIA).

 

Since July 2020, the four regional gelatin associations have been working together in a joint working group, Gelatin Representatives of the World (GROW), to better represent the gelatin sector internationally.

 

How is gelatin manufactured today?

As this brief gelatin history reveals, gelatin has come a long way over several millennia: from cauldron-boiled animal skins and bones to the sophisticated manufacturing sites that define the modern gelatin industry. Consistently extracting high-quality gelatin from native collagen is a complex process.

 

Rousselot employs strictly controlled hygienic processes, that meet national and international ISO, HACCP and GMP specifications, to ensure industry-benchmark, non-GMO, chemical conversion-free gelatin.

 

Our commitment to quality control and traceability is enacted at every step of the process to meet food, pharma, cosmetic, biomedical and technical application requirements at Rousselot’s 11 scalable facilities on four continents.

 

Rousselot’s focus on quality that has fueled more than 130 years of specialized refinement and innovation.

 

Even today, in 2021, there is still so much to discover about gelatin molecules. 

 

¹Global Gelatin Market Insights Forecast to 2026, Calibre Research, 2020

²The importance of gelatin in pharmaceutical and medical applications

³https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/drugs

⁴https://www.gelatine.org/en/gelatine/history.html and https://www.gelatine.org/en/applications/specials.html