The Inventor of the Pringles Can Is Buried in One

The iconic cylindrical packaging of Pringles was born out of a common frustration for snack lovers: broken and stale potato chips. In the mid-1950s, Procter & Gamble tasked organic chemist Fredric Baur with creating a more reliable potato chip experience to address consumer complaints about greasy, broken chips and excessive air in bags. Baur's solution was twofold: a uniformly shaped chip and a container designed to protect it. He developed the saddle-shaped chip, a design known mathematically as a hyperbolic paraboloid, which allowed them to be neatly stacked. This innovation solved the problem of breakage that plagued traditional bagged chips.

To house these unique chips, Baur designed the revolutionary tubular can, for which he filed a patent in 1966. This airtight, rigid container protected the fragile contents from being crushed and kept them fresh. Baur was immensely proud of his creation, which transformed the snack food industry by ensuring consumers received a consistent, whole product every time. He held his invention in such high regard that he made an unusual request to his family in the 1980s for his eventual burial.

When Baur passed away in 2008 at the age of 89, his children dutifully honored his final wish. On the way to the funeral home, they stopped at a Walgreens to purchase a Pringles can for his ashes. After a brief debate among themselves about which flavor to choose, they settled on Original. A portion of his cremated remains was then interred in the iconic container, a fitting final tribute to the invention that was the proudest achievement of his career.