42% Potato, 100% Engineering: The Origin Story of Pringles

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Pringles are engineered potato crisps: perfectly uniform and stackable.

Image: Open Food Facts; click on link for ingredient analysis

While working at Proctor & Gamble, chemist Fred Baur (1918–2008) reinvented potato chips by creating uniform "crisps" (only 42% potato per ingredients analysis) using dehydrated potato dough pressed into hyperbolic paraboloid shapes for even crunch and stackability, solving 1950s chip inconsistencies. Baur spent two years developing these saddle-shaped chips but could not make it palatable. Although Baur designed the shape of the Pringles chip, it is P&G researcher, Alexander Liepa's name that is on the patent as he worked on it further and improved its taste.

Baur's pride in his Procter & Gamble innovation led to his 2008 partial burial in a Pringles can.

The brand was sold in 2012 to Kellanova, but in 2024, Kellanova, Kellogg's parent company, agreed to be purchased by Mars Inc.

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