He invented the can of Pringles and asked his kids to bury him in a can before he died: The Fred Baur story

It’s 2008. We’re in Cincinnati, Ohio. Larry Bau and his younger brothers drive to the funeral home to collect their father’s ashes. They are going to satisfy the last wish of Fred: the execution of what they call “Piano Pringles”.

Before reaching their destination, the Baurs stop at a Walgreens. They enter. Without distractions they face the food aisle. They’re looking for fries.

It takes them seconds to find the long tubes of Pringles, but they are already there, in front of their eyes, waiting to be purchased. Discussion time.

“What taste do we have?” asks a Baur. Onion and cream? Barbecue? Larry has no doubts: his father wished he was buried inside a can of original flavor Pringles.

Anatomy of a Pringles container

What made Fred Baur want to rest in a jar of Pringles forever?

The more primitive Pringles, those of the late 60s and early 70s that circulated only in the United States, annoyed the locals a little. The typical popular refusal of change, of the different.

For an expert like fil lempert, creator of supermarketguru.com, the uniform curvature, size and color of these chips didn’t suit the individualism of the decade. Baur agrees: It took Pringles years to get accepted.

The can where Fred’s remains lie is made of cardboard and is lined inside with aluminum foil. It has a plastic lid that closes tightly, preventing air from entering.

Inside the potatoes, sometimes less than 20, sometimes 25, 80 or 95, rest in piles without danger of breaking. Everything the jar offers is beneficial.

pringles? winning

Pringles chips, or all Pringles-style chips, are a virtuous food: little greasy -don’t get your hands dirty- hard to break and a social agreement has been reached that it is tasty.

Procter & Gamble (now Kellogs) began making the monster in 1956 and first sold it in 1968 in Indiana. After some success, in 1975 it was distributed throughout the United States.

But it was in the eighties that it became popular in the country. All thanks to Brad Pitt. Yes, Brad Pitt.

In one of his first jobs in the audiovisual industry, the actor, two other boys with whom he shared the hegemony and three tonic women starred in a psychedelic commercial in which they all eat Pringles together – in their underwear. They take advantage of the quirky packaging to look at each other and look very, very tops.

Thanks to this advertising, the commercial path of Pringles continued to rise, so much so that in 1991 the product began to be sold all over the world and became the snack Cold for excellence. The rest is history.

The realization of a dream

Could Fred Baur have created the Pringles container thinking this would be the right place to be buried?

In 1956, Procter & Gamble asked a young chemist to develop a new recipe for snack foods that didn’t break down, weren’t too greasy, and didn’t have air in the package. It took Baur two years to deliver it.

Produced on the palate, the company’s tasters found everything to be good except the taste. Fred’s prototype Pringles lacked taste. So they could not be differentiated from the “Lays style” that reigned at that time. So what happens next.

enter the court Alexander Liepa.

In the 1960s, this character reinvigorated the project by adding to the potatoes already created by Baur a pleasant and recognizable taste. The taste that almost everyone recognizes and few could match.

In this way, thanks to a joint effort, Pringles were born. Liepa has been recognized as the creator of the secret formula and Baur as the designer of the packaging and style of the chip, including the particular curved shape of these snacks.

In 1966 Fred patented his creation and in 1971 it was made official. Years passed, Baur graduated as an organic chemist, food preservation scientist, earned masters and Ph.D. from Ohio State University, served in the US Navy as an aviation physiologist, and in the 1980s, three decades before his death, He asked his children to bury him in a Pringles jar when he died..

“When my dad first brought up the idea of ​​burial in a can in the 80s, I laughed it off. That day (the funeral) I remembered again. My brothers and I briefly discussed which flavor to use for my dad’s filling. It was clear to me, we had to use the originals,” Larry Baur said in a statement to Time.

On May 4, 2008, shortly after turning ninety, Fred’s dream has come true.