There’s no way they’ll sell Pringles in bags though; they’re way too delicate for anything but a purpose-built rigid container.
The first R is already not an option, people who buy pringles want pringles, otherwise they wouldn’t be buying that. Short of making pringles illegal you’re not going to change this.
> There’s no way they’ll sell Pringles in bags though; they’re way too delicate for anything but a purpose-built rigid container.
Pringles were literally invented because potato chips were too fragile at a time when shipping bags of chips and having them survive the transit was basically a bad bet. Chips remain sold in bags to this day.
Chips which are much thicker than Pringles.
So about six cans of Pringles per lifetime?
Why not Al cans?
Now, I doubt an aluminum Pringles can would need 1mm wall thickness for sufficient strength to deal with the usual rigors of being handled by a minimum wage shipping or shelf-stocking employee. However, I will concede that something with say, the typical .01-.02 wall thickness of a soda/beer can may be harder to produce with a workflow of cutting can-lengths from a large piece of extruded stock. Depending on how the stock was cut, you risk crushing it. At that thickness, you'd do better to stamp the final can size & shape from crude blanks. Now, at high enough volume, it could be worth it to in-house the can-stamping operation; beer companies are an example. I could see Pringles having enough volume to justify in-house production of their cans.
But I don't think a .01-.02 wall thickness would be enough for a Pringles can. Yes, soda cans are strong enough to endure shipping and handling, but most of that strength comes from the fact that their contents are under pressure; significantly moreso than a pringles can, I'd bet. Witness how easy it becomes to crush a soda can once it is opened, even when it is still partially full. So .01-02mm wouldn't do. I'd guess .1-2mm would, however. But at a 10x wall thickness you're using 10x the material if my math is right, so an all-aluminum Pringles can with a .1mm wall thickness would cost at least 10x to produce as a soda can of equal length.
So yeah, manufacturing cost issue is probably at least one factor. But I'm willing to be wrong about that.
Either way, that brings up an interesting (to me, anyway) question: Would it be cheaper for Pringles to simply stamp their cans with thicker walls, or engineer their production line to allow the cans to be sealed at an even higher pressure?
I am sick and tired of this being the solution to every problem!
Anytime there's a legacy business model in need of polishing, they plate it in Al and call it something new.
Al doesn't work that way. There's many uses it excels at, but it's not a panacea.
Nowadays, we have Al toasters, Al refrigerators, even Al watches. Yet no one stopped to ask if these were devices that needed Al.
Hell, I even heard about a company that's building Al homes. Interface with your car and everything.
Personally, I can't wait for the next Al winter.
/1950s sarcasm
Good fonts let you know the difference between a lowercase l (ell) and an uppercase I (eye).
Pringles have nothing on Doritos.