The inventor of the Pringles can was cremated and buried in one of them

Next time you pull your hand out of a Pringles can and lick the leftover flavouring off your fingers, think about the fun fact that the creator of the tube had his ashes buried in one.

That's one way to ruin a Texas BBQ binge.

As morbid as it might sound, it's actually true.

Fredric J Baur, from Cincinnati, was so proud of his Pringles can creation that he was buried in one of the colourful containers after he passed away on 4 May 2008, at the age of 89.

Felix Choo / Alamy Stock Photo

Throughout his life, Baur worked as an organic chemist and food storage technician at Procter & Gamble; the manufacturing company now behind Head & Shoulders, Gillette and Ariel.

Baur specialised in research and development and quality control for the company, and is credited as having started working on the idea for Pringles in the mid-1950s, when he was looking to find an alternative to potato chips.

Recognising that existing products were often stale and broken, Baur designed the iconic curved shape of the crisps and the tube to contain them.

In 1966, Baur filed for a patent for the tubular Pringles container and the method for stacking the curved chips inside.

The patent was granted in 1970, before Baur retired from the company in the early 1980s.

Decades on the crisps remain a favourite for parties and snacking, and Baur was so proud of his design that he requested to be buried in one of the infamous cans.

Chris Bull / Alamy Stock Photo

Following his death, Baur's children honoured the request and placed some of his cremated remains into one of the containers, which was buried in suburban Springfield Township in Ohio.

It's unclear whether Baur's burial can had a flavour attached to it, but we can only hope it wasn't a tube of sour cream and onion.

They might taste good, but nobody wants to be surrounded by that smell for all eternity.

Other ashes, presumably those which couldn't fit in the can, were buried in an urn at the same gravesite, while the rest were placed in a third container and given to a grandson.

Baur's son Lawrence said his father had requested the burial arrangement because he was proud of his design of the Pringles container.

Considering they're still in use all these years later, it's clear he had good reason to be proud - even if the tubes do make the crisps frustratingly hard to reach sometimes.