Cooling and storage

Refrigeration and the cool room are both Australian inventions. The world’s first ice-making plant was built in Geelong, Victoria, in 1851 by James Harrison. Cooling was achieved by ‘evaporation of volatile liquids in vacuo’, the basic technique which is still used today. Refrigerated cold stores, first for the storage of meat, but shortly afterwards for apples and pears, were in operation by the 1880s—an Australian first.