Lloyd Augustus Hall
Food chemist who made curing and sterilisation reliable
At a glance
- Inventor
- Lloyd Augustus Hall
- Life
- 1894–1971
- Birthplace
- Elgin, Illinois
- Country
- United States
- Region
- United States
- Era
- 1900–1950
- Fields
- Industry & Materials, Agriculture
- Evidence
- Verified
- Records
- 1 in this archive
What they did
As chief chemist at Griffith Laboratories, Hall developed flash-drying of curing salts, antioxidant formulations that slowed rancidity in fats, and a vacuum-and-ethylene-oxide method for sterilising spices without destroying them.
Historical context
Spices carried bacteria and mould spores straight into cured meat. Heat sterilisation ruined their flavour; Hall's gas method did not.
Obstacles
Hired by telephone and turned away in person once his employer saw him, he built his career inside industrial laboratories rather than the universities that would not have him.
The legacy
He was granted dozens of United States patents across food chemistry and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2004.
The evidence
Granted patents of Lloyd A. Hall, food preservation series
Primary recordLloyd Hall inductee record
Institutional record
Documentation strength
- 2
- Sources
- 1
- Primary
- 2
- Publishers
Calculated from the sources actually attached to this record — the closer a source sits to the original document, the more it counts. It is never asserted by hand.