Pringles wanted to create a perfect chip to address consumer complaints about broken and stale chips, and air in the bags. The task was assigned to chemist Fredric Baur, who, from 1956 to 1958, created Pringles’ saddle shape from fried dough, and the can to go with it. Mr. Baur could not figure out how to make the chips taste good, though, and he eventually was pulled off the Pringles job to work on another brand.
In the mid-1960s, another P&G researcher, Alexander Liepa, restarted Mr. Baur’s work, and set out to improve on the Pringles taste, which he succeeded in doing. While Mr. Baur was the true inventor of the Pringles crisp, according to the patent Pringles was invented by Alexander Liepa of Montgomery, Ohio.
Gene Wolfe, a mechanical engineer-cum-author known for science fiction and fantasy novels, developed the machine that cooks them.
Their consistent saddle shape is mathematically known as a hyperbolic paraboloid. Their design is reportedly aided by supercomputers.
Pringles have only about 42% potato content, the remainder being wheat starch and flours (potato, corn, and rice) mixed with vegetable oils and an emulsifier.
Contrary to a popular misconception, Pringles crisps are fried, not baked.
