At some point in our lives, while we are biting into our slice of pizzawe will ask ourselves this question: “But why are we eating from a square cardboard when in reality the pizza is roundabout?”. The simple truth is that producing a square box is easier and more profitable for companies. Although it may seem counterintuitive, classic pizza boxes are wasteful less material compared to a round box. They are also easier to store in warehouse and to transport, thanks to the very regular shape they take when they are flat (before being folded). Furthermore, they are better suited to pizzas of different sizes. These reasons are followed by other advantages also for the pizza chef.
Pizza boxes are made from a special type of cardboard that is cut into two dimensions (therefore flat). The cartons are first stored in the warehouse and then transported and sold to pizzerias while they are dishes. It is the pizza chefs who fold them to make them three-dimensional.
Now, have you ever seen it development of a pizza box? If we remove all the folds and make it flat, we will see that its shape is similar to that of a rectangle.
Already from the first production step we see the advantage of having a pizza box that starts from a rectangular development. A rectangle is a very figure regular which can be stored on a very regular basis. The same applies when you need to load the cartons onto a truck for transport: insertion into the compartment can take place in a very orderly manner and allows you not to waste empty spaces, which is what round cartons would do instead.
We can think about the development of a cylinder and imagine our round pizza box. We immediately notice a problem.
If we wanted to use the classic production method they would be needed two cartoons differentbecause in a round box there is no side that can be used as a hinge and on which to fold the other half of the box. The development of the round box would be a bit strange because there would be a large circle that acts as a base and a very long narrow strip that must run around it. And again, given the absence of straight sides, it would be very difficult to create an origami in order to assemble the box only with fits and without glue.
Even if we could find one form such that you can develop an origami and form a round 3D box, there are two things to consider. It is very likely that the space of the circular shape takes up more space on the cardboard than the rectangular shape does. In this way, no material would be saved, on the contrary! We would have to use a larger cardboard to cut the cylindrical shape but a large part of this cardboard would be waste.
Another likely problem is that the perimeter of the round box may be greater than that of the rectangular box. This means that the machine that cuts the shape (and therefore runs around the perimeter of the shape) would take more time to cut a single carton. In production, time is money.
However, someone has already thought about producing one round pizza box. The 2012 patent comes from Steve Jobs’ company.
As we can see, the box still has a straight side which is used as a hinge to close the two halves. The main difference is that the production technology is not that of flat cutting but rather one molding processwhich is also used to give shape to paper plates for example. A flat sheet or paper pulp can be given a small concavity by using the right combinations of temperature, humidity and pressure operated by the machine. The paper is made to adhere to a mold for a few seconds and takes on its shape. So let’s say that we are talking about a different product.
The round Apple pizza box was invented by an Italian: Francesco Longoni responsible for the catering sector of the Cupertino company. To be honest, someone before him had already thought about it. This is Mark V. Fiori who in 1994 published his patent which closely resembles Jobs’ cartoon.
The truth is that even i pizza chefs they derive their advantages from a square rather than a round cardboard! The pizzas don’t all come out perfectly round, so you also need to leave a margin of error and think of a cartoon in which the pizza, for better or worse, enters quickly without making too much fuss.
