Luncheon meat was born during the depression on the eve of World War II. It is a product of the American meat giant Hormel Company. In order to make use of the pork shoulder that people don't like to eat, Hormel chops it, adds water, salt, and starch to shape it, and then stuffs it into square cans. Hormel named this product "SPAM", which is said to be the abbreviation of "Spiced Ham", but the earliest ingredients did not contain ham at all. Later, in order to avoid the suspicion of deceiving consumers, Hormel Less than 10% pork leg meat was added symbolically.

However, after the outbreak of World War II, the government discovered that this product was a perfect military ration, with low price, long shelf life, easy transportation, and ready-to-eat without heating. As a result, canned luncheon meat flooded to the front line, and the soldiers used it for three meals a day.

In fact, similar canned meat had appeared during the Napoleonic period, and in 1870 the military finally decided to apply it to the army. In addition to the Americans, the Russians also made a lot of contributions to the promotion of canned meat. In 1875, canned meat became the rations of Russian soldiers and made a brilliant debut in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877. In 1897, military engineer Fedorov invented the double-layer self-heating can. In 1915 Russia began supplying troops in small quantities, which were welcomed by scouts and even enemies.

In the early 20th century, some private factories in Russia began to produce fish in tomato sauce. By the time of World War I, all participating countries included cans in their equipment. The series of cans produced in Russia are especially marked with the words "Specially for the Troops", and the cans have production year and other information. After the outbreak of World War II, the Soviet Union was unable to produce enough cans. Large quantities of canned luncheon meat were imported from the United States under Lend-Lease. Labeled in Russian as pork stew, it became the favorite of Soviet soldiers on the front lines. The Soviet Union supplied 2 billion cans and was known as the second battlefield. It enabled the Soviet Red Army to achieve results far earlier than the US military's Normandy.