Disclaimer: this story, much like the Pringles now growing beards under your couch, is a little old. But as anyone familiar with popping vs. stopping standards will understand, there is no statute of limitations on weird junk food burial news. Plus, I just really like saying “potato coffin.”
The good folks over at Gizmodo recently called our attention to Fredric Baur, the organic chemist who streamlined American snacking. In 1966, Baur devised a new packaging design that would allow Procter & Gamble to do away with air-filled bags; according to Eric Spitznagle, author of The Junk Food Companion, Baur’s Pringle can showcased “the inherent beauty and power of uniformity […] Every chip looks the same, acts the same.”
As early as 1980, Baur began to request that his ashes be buried in the design he’d become famous for. At the inventor’s insistence, when he passed away 18 years later in 2008, his children stopped at Walgreen’s for a can of Pringles on their way to the funeral home. Baur’s son told TIME
…My siblings and I briefly debated what flavor to use […] but I said, ‘Look, we need to use the original.’
Baur’s legacy lives on today in Pringles and the packaging revolution his design inspired–the chemist’s can was the precursor for string cheese, the pyramid shape of Toblerone, and doughnut holes.
Clearly we owe you a lot, sir. Rest in Pringles.
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