Did You Know: The Pringles Can’s Inventor Was Buried In One
Did You Know? is a design trivia segment brought to you by DesignTAXI in which we get to the surprise candy of well-loved designs or brands. Stay tuned for more history and behind-the-scenes tidbits as we grow this column.
Image via Jino Kanjiramvila / Shutterstock.com
People have some pretty interesting death wishes, but a suggestion by Dr Fredric Baur, the man behind the Pringles can, might be the crispest idea of all.
Baur was so proud of his invention, he was immersed in it even in death. He had advised his children to bury his ashes in a Pringles can, and so they did.
Oh, Crumbs
Image via MOZCO Mateusz Szymanski / Shutterstock.com
Afflicted by how chips kept getting crushed into dust and turning stale in bags, Procter & Gamble tasked Baur, a chemist, to rethink its snack packaging.
In 1966, Baur developed a container to stack chips uniformly so they wouldn’t get broken. Simultaneously, he also designed an early version of Pringles’ hyperbolic paraboloid “saddle” shape.
This consistency didn’t get a warm welcome in the 1960s. According to food editor Phil Lampert, consumers were expecting their snacks to arrive in all kinds of shapes and sizes. It would take years before people embraced same-sized potato chips.
Chipping In
Baur’s son, Larry, told TIME, “When my dad first raised the burial idea in the 1980s, I chuckled about it,” but he quickly found out his father wasn’t kidding.
When the Pringles packaging inventor died in 2008 after a fight with Alzheimer’s, his children headed to a Walgreens and purchased a can of Pringles to store his ashes. Not all of his ashes could be kept in the packaging, though, so they moved the rest into two other urns.
As for which flavor to use, the siblings didn’t think much of it, “But I said, ‘Look, we need to use the original,’” Larry Baur declared.
Image via Mehaniq / Shutterstock.com
[via TIME, Today I Found Out, images via Shutterstock]
Image via Jino Kanjiramvila / Shutterstock.com
People have some pretty interesting death wishes, but a suggestion by Dr Fredric Baur, the man behind the Pringles can, might be the crispest idea of all.
Baur was so proud of his invention, he was immersed in it even in death. He had advised his children to bury his ashes in a Pringles can, and so they did.
Oh, Crumbs
Image via MOZCO Mateusz Szymanski / Shutterstock.com
Afflicted by how chips kept getting crushed into dust and turning stale in bags, Procter & Gamble tasked Baur, a chemist, to rethink its snack packaging.
In 1966, Baur developed a container to stack chips uniformly so they wouldn’t get broken. Simultaneously, he also designed an early version of Pringles’ hyperbolic paraboloid “saddle” shape.
This consistency didn’t get a warm welcome in the 1960s. According to food editor Phil Lampert, consumers were expecting their snacks to arrive in all kinds of shapes and sizes. It would take years before people embraced same-sized potato chips.
Chipping In
Baur’s son, Larry, told TIME, “When my dad first raised the burial idea in the 1980s, I chuckled about it,” but he quickly found out his father wasn’t kidding.
When the Pringles packaging inventor died in 2008 after a fight with Alzheimer’s, his children headed to a Walgreens and purchased a can of Pringles to store his ashes. Not all of his ashes could be kept in the packaging, though, so they moved the rest into two other urns.
As for which flavor to use, the siblings didn’t think much of it, “But I said, ‘Look, we need to use the original,’” Larry Baur declared.
Image via Mehaniq / Shutterstock.com
[via TIME, Today I Found Out, images via Shutterstock]
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