Pringles inventor Fredric Baur’s ashes were buried in a Pringles can.
When considering a final resting place, most people ponder the conventional options, such as a coffin or, for those who prefer cremation, an urn. Not Pringles inventor Fredric Baur, whose devotion to his innovative packaging method (which stacks his perfectly curved creations in a tall tube) was so intense that he had his ashes buried in a Pringles can. “When my dad first raised the burial idea in the 1980s, I chuckled about it,” Baur’s eldest son, Larry, has said of his father’s wishes. But this was no joke. So after the inventor died in 2008, his children made a stop on their way to the funeral home: a Walgreens, where they had to decide which can to choose. “My siblings and I briefly debated what flavor to use,” Larry Baur added (sour cream and onion? Barbecue?). “But I said, ‘Look, we need to use the original.’” Baur’s ashes now rest, in the can, at his grave in a suburban section of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Baur is far from the only person to choose an unconventional burial method — and many new choices have emerged across the world in recent years and decades. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s ashes were launched into space, a fitting resting place if ever there was one. Some Koreans, meanwhile, have opted to have their ashes turned into sea-green beads that are placed in bottles or jars; the process is not unlike turning sand into glass. Those who prefer an environmentally friendly option, meanwhile, have encouraged the green burial movement, which prohibits spending eternity in non-biodegradable containers — meaning that a Pringles container probably wouldn’t fly.
As far as the Food and Drug Administration is concerned, Pringles aren't actually potato chips. Their main ingredient is dehydrated processed potato — not thin slices of fried potato, like in a typical chip — which led to a 1975 ruling by the FDA that they could only be labeled “chips” if they came with a disclaimer identifying them as “potato chips made from dried potatoes.” The company opted to market them as potato “crisps” instead.
