What do you think of this fact?
Some people are buried with their favorite book, others with a family photo. Fredric Baur went with something crunchier. Part of his ashes rests in a Pringles can. The reason: he invented it.
A chemist with a stacking idea
Baur had a PhD in organic chemistry and worked for consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble. Besides chips, he worked on frying oils and freeze-dried ice cream. But his most famous creation is the Pringles tube.
The idea behind it is pretty clever. Pringles have a curved saddle shape, which mathematicians call a hyperbolic paraboloid. That lets the chips stack neatly and fit into a slim, resealable can. Instead of a half-empty bag full of crumbs, you get tidy stacks. Baur filed the patent for the can and the stacked packaging in 1966, and it was granted in 1971. Pringles themselves hit the market in 1968.
A final wish
Baur died in May 2008 at age 89 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He had asked to be buried in his invention, and his children made it happen. They placed part of his ashes in an Original flavor Pringles can and buried it in his grave. The rest of his ashes went into an urn right next to it, and a small portion went to a grandchild.
You don’t have to find that morbid. It feels more like a wink from a man who was rightly proud of his tube. How many inventors can say they rest inside their own product?
Pringles belonged to Procter & Gamble for decades. The brand went to Kellogg’s in 2012, and it’s now owned by Mars.
His tube now sits on supermarket shelves all over the world. At least one of them holds something very special.