Favorite Food-Packaging Innovations

[Fat Guy]

Food that actually comes in Zip-Loc-style bags.

Yours?

[scamhi]

Love the zip locks...the ones that work.

One product that is in need of a packaging overhall is logs of goat cheese. They are messy and difficult to remove a small amount.

[Sandra Levine]

You beat me to it, F-G.

[Fresser]

I was always fond of the cheese-and-cracker packages that came with a little plastic spreader for the cheese.

[Fat Guy]

I wonder if this topic is broad enough to include the dramatic improvement, over the past decade or so, in all paper products that come in a roll. All of a sudden, one day, it became much easier to get the first sheet off a roll of paper towels, toilet paper, etc. Do they have a Nobel Prize for that?

[g.johnson]

Ignoble Prizes

[Varmint]

I wonder if this topic is broad enough to include the dramatic improvement, over the past decade or so, in all paper products that come in a roll. All of a sudden, one day, it became much easier to get the first sheet off a roll of paper towels, toilet paper, etc. Do they have a Nobel Prize for that?

I actually had to draft a patent application during a summer clerkship regarding a novel device that puts toilet paper on the cardboard tubes.

Now, why didn't I go into patent law?

[guajolote]

Ignoble Prizes

I forgot about these:

Here's some food related one:

PHYSICS

Arnd Leike of the University of Munich, for demonstrating that beer froth obeys the mathematical Law of Exponential Decay. [REFERENCE: "Demonstration of the Exponential Decay Law Using Beer Froth," Arnd Leike, European Journal of Physics, vol. 23, January 2002, pp. 21-26.]

MEDICINE

Peter Barss of McGill University, for his impactful medical report "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts." [PUBLISHED IN: The Journal of Trauma, vol. 21, no. 11, 1984, pp. 990-1.]

BIOLOGY

Buck Weimer of Pueblo, Colorado for inventing Under-Ease, airtight underwear with a replaceable charcoal filter that removes bad-smelling gases before they escape.

PUBLIC HEALTH

Chittaranjan Andrade and B.S. Srihari of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India, for their probing medical discovery that nose picking is a common activity among adolescents. [REFERENCE: "A Preliminary Survey of Rhinotillexomania in an Adolescent Sample," Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 62, no. 6, June 2001, pp. 426-31.]

SOCIOLOGY

Steve Penfold, of York University in Toronto, for doing his PhD thesis on the sociology of Canadian donut shops.

BIOLOGY

Dr. Paul Bosland, director of The Chile Pepper Institute, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, for breeding a spiceless jalapeno chile pepper.

[bigbear]

Screw-off beer caps.

[hjshorter]

Milk and juice cartons that come with a little screw-cap instead of forcing you to mangle the carton when opening it for the first time.

[Jason Perlow]

BIOLOGY

Dr. Paul Bosland, director of The Chile Pepper Institute, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, for breeding a spiceless jalapeno chile pepper.

He gets a prize for that? He should be summarilly executed.

[guajolote]

That's the whole point, they give them out for worthless research.

[Dave the Cook]

Aseptic packaging, so I never have to worry about the quart of whole milk going bad in my refrigerator.

[Ron Johnson]

Now, why didn't I go into patent law?

'cuz you have to take two bar exams. At least thats my excuse.

[Wilfrid]

I wonder if this topic is broad enough to include the dramatic improvement, over the past decade or so, in all paper products that come in a roll. All of a sudden, one day, it became much easier to get the first sheet off a roll of paper towels, toilet paper, etc. Do they have a Nobel Prize for that?

Also the kitchen rolls with more frequent perforations, so you choose a smaller sheet. For those little jobs.

[Basildog]

A bit of a tangent, but i love the story about the company switching to popcorn to pack its electrical goods for shipping, instead of the polysterine chips.Bio degradable and cheaper..Good Work Fella!

[=Mark]

BIOLOGY

Dr. Paul Bosland, director of The Chile Pepper Institute, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, for breeding a spiceless jalapeno chile pepper.

He gets a prize for that? He should be summarilly executed.

That's the whole point, they give them out for worthless research.

Worthless? I read an article about this some years ago and the holder of a patent to such a chile stands to make millions in the food industry for being able to supply cheap jalapeno flavor to prepared foods without the heat.

What many chileheads worry about is that the genes expressing this trait may be incorporated into standard breed chiles rendering them... um... impotent.

Edited March 26, 2003 by =Mark (log)

[Jason Perlow]

A bit of a tangent, but i love the story about the company switching to popcorn to pack its electrical goods for shipping, instead of the polysterine chips.Bio degradable and cheaper..Good Work Fella!

I remember there used to be this packing material that was essentially cheesy puffs without the cheese. You'd open up this big box of computer equipment and you'd smell this corn flavor. It was edible, but not particularly tasty.

[Wilfrid]

Anyone think how much paper is saved by producing circular, instead of square, tea-bags?

[guajolote]

A bit of a tangent, but i love the story about the company switching to popcorn to pack its electrical goods for shipping, instead of the polysterine chips.Bio degradable and cheaper..Good Work Fella!

I remember there used to be this packing material that was essentially cheesy puffs without the cheese. You'd open up this big box of computer equipment and you'd smell this corn flavor. It was edible, but not particularly tasty.

These are made out of corn starch. My daughter got a toy that was a bucnh of these, all different colors. You could "glue" them together by licking the ends and pressing.

[nervousnelli]

I don't know if it's a packaging or product change but chips (besides Pringles) are now being packed in cans or containers that look like cans. What's the deal with that? Is it just so they don't get crushed or is there something different in there? It seems like a waste of packaging to me.

[Kim WB]

The Kraft RAnch dressing that has a wide lid, and stores inverted..like the newer toothpaste tubes? My son eats baby carrots and radishes like they are going out of style since they invented this bottle.

[NewYorkTexan]

The ketchup and honey squeeze bottles that are designed upside-down so the opening is on the bottom of the bottle.

It is such a simple yet helpful idea I can not understand why no company marketed it sooner.

[Stone]

It is such a simple yet helpful idea I can not understand why no company marketed it sooner.

A lot of this stuff had to wait for advances in plastic technology, although probably not the upside down bottles.

[Jason Perlow]

I like the Smint dispenser. I dunno why.