Procter & Gamble chemist Fred Bower engineered Pringles to solve 1950s complaints about fragile, greasy potato chips. The saddle-shaped, stackable crisp in a vacuum can initially flopped because it tasted like cardboard, but reformulation with dehydrated potatoes, rice, and corn turned it into a global hit selling over 4 billion cans yearly.
These stackable chips are your favorite party snack, but they almost ran out of business. Here's what happened. It all starts in 1956. Procter Gamble has complaints up to here about their potato chips. And we all know the story. A bag filled with more air than chips. The chips are greasy, fragile, and the packaging is filled with tons of broken pieces. So they hired this guy, Fred Bower, a chemist, to solve the problem. And Bower creates a saddle-shaped chip using a formula that keeps them crispy, clean, and perfectly stackable, all in a vacuum-sealed can. But there's just one problem. They taste like absolute cardboard. So P&G shelves the idea for years. But the consumer complaints get even worse. So they revisit the idea, this time using a new recipe with dehydrated potatoes, rice, and corn. And boom, chips in a can are born. But even after hitting the shelves, they're a complete flop. So hated, in fact, the entire chip market starts to decline, and other manufacturers force them to stop calling them chips and instead label them as crisps. And since then, they rebranded them as Pringles, and eventually consumers changed their mind. And now over 4 billion cans are sold each and every year.
