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Pringles

A soap company set out to build a better potato chip. Decades later, it went to court to argue that Pringles weren't really potato crisps at all.

Runtime
15:10
Chapters
8
Spans
1956 – 2009
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the name? nobody knows for sure.

P&G made soap, not snacks01:00

The odd beginning

It started at

a soap company.

In 2008, a family in Cincinnati stopped at a drugstore on the way to a funeral home to pick a can of Pringles: their father, the chemist who designed it, wanted some of his ashes buried in one. That same spring, in a London courtroom, the company that made it was arguing that Pringles weren't really potato crisps at all.

A soap company, a chip that kept breaking, a tube nobody had asked for, a chip war with America's potato chip makers, a famous flop, a comeback, and a British tax case that asked the strangest question in snack history: what exactly is a Pringle?

Frames from the film

A horse saddle beside a chip curved into the same shape.
A horse saddle beside a chip curved into the same shape.
Chips stacked in a clear tube, held flat under a pile of books.
Chips stacked in a clear tube, held flat under a pile of books.
A balance scale with a potato on one side and a can of Pringles on the other.
A balance scale with a potato on one side and a can of Pringles on the other.
Three mourners at a grave at sunset, with a can of Pringles beside the headstone.
Three mourners at a grave at sunset, with a can of Pringles beside the headstone.

Chapters

  1. 00The Perfect Chip0:00
  2. 01The Soap Company's Chip1:01
  3. 02Newfangled3:25
  4. 03The Chip War5:39
  5. 04Dead7:49
  6. 05The Comeback9:12
  7. 06Not a Crisp10:11
  8. 07The Answer14:05

A note on accuracy

Fred Baur's wish and the drugstore stop are his family's account (AP and Time, 2008). Nobody knows for sure where the name "Pringle's" came from; the story P&G tells most is about Pringle Drive, and the film says so. Gene Wolfe's part in the story is his own account. Dialogue is dramatised: the judge's question is read from the 2009 judgment, the chip maker's line is from Time (1969) and Wolfe's line is from a 1998 interview.

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Sources

15 cited
  1. 01Court of Appeal: Revenue & Customs v Procter & Gamble UK [2009] EWCA Civ 407
  2. 02High Court: Procter & Gamble UK v Revenue & Customs [2008] EWHC 1558 (Ch)
  3. 03Federal Register (1975): "Potato Chips Made From Dried Potatoes"
  4. 04US GAO report B-179195 (1974)
  5. 05US Patent 3,498,798 (Baur and Hawley)
  6. 06US Patent 3,594,187 (Liepa)
  7. 07Time (2008): "The Man Buried in a Pringles Can"
  8. 08AP via NBC News (2008): "Pringles can designer buried in his work"
  9. 09Time (1969): "Marketing: The Potato-Chip War"
  10. 10Time (1975): "Marketing: Non-Crunch on Pringle's"
  11. 11The New York Times (2011): "Once a Great Flop, Now Sold for Billions"
  12. 12BBC News (2008): "Pringles 'are not potato crisps'"
  13. 13BBC News (2009): "Pringles lose Appeal Court case"
  14. 14Ries & Trout, Positioning (1981)
  15. 15Nova Express (1998): interview with Gene Wolfe

Pringles, the Pringles can and Mr. P are trademarks of Kellanova, a Mars company; Procter & Gamble is a trademark of The Procter & Gamble Company. Logos are shown for identification only. This is an independent documentary, not affiliated with or endorsed by any of these companies.

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