His work focused on food safety issues, specifically pasteurization and meat curing.
Tanner's research in food science and technology would also lead to the establishment of the food technology department at Illinois in 1947.
Tanner was a presenter at a 1937 conference with Samuel Cate Prescott of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) held at MIT on "Microorganisms in Relation to Food Processing."
A year earlier, Tanner founded the scientific journal Food Research, now JFS., where he would remain as Editor-In-Chief until 1951.
The IFT Chicago Section would establish the Fred W. Tanner Lectureship in 1960 that is held every May.