Apple may be known as the biggest technology giant but the primary idea behind being this powerhouse is innovation. And Cupertino isn’t behind on imbibing its ethics into easing its workplace culture as well. Thus, the tech giant is known to have patented and specifically-designed pizza boxes for carrying piping-hot, cheesy goodness back to your desk.
While this isn’t fresh news but Apple’s brand new campus is opening up to employees very soon and these circular pizza boxes (that are pictured above) have been spotted in the cafeteria. The team at Wired was able to pre-empt everyone and get a tour of the said circular spaceship-like campus earlier this week. Apple Park, as the campus is known, is an architectural marvel and has been one of the outstanding projects for the company’s leading product designer — Jonathan Ive.
Coming back to the pizza boxes, it is quite different from traditional square boxes we’re familiar with. For one, it is circular and has numerous indentations and holes to serve a very important purpose — letting the moisture escape the box to prevent the pizza from getting soggy. The indentations on the inside of the box provide an air gap between the base of the box and the pizza slice. The pizza box is made from environment friendly materials.
The patent application describes the pizza box as under:
A container constructed in a preformed manner, such that no assembly of the container is required before use. The container includes a lid portion that is coupled to the base portion through a hinged connection such that the entire container is singularly constructed from a single piece of material.
The Cupertino giant had applied and was granted this patent back in 2010, about seven years ago. The circular pizza boxes, which have been invented by Francesco Longoni (the head of Apple’s food services team), have long been in circulation at the company’s existing campuses.
The Guardian has dug up the past on Twitter and found a signed patented pizza box placed among the parting gifts and tributes collected by Apple employees after co-founder Steve Jobs’ death. And since the teams are now moving to the new campus, their food-related innovations are also going with them.
@mantia @panzer the Caffè Macs pizza box is nice and when Steve Jobs died was signed by many Apple Food’s employees pic.twitter.com/wG5A63C3xc
— setteB.IT (@setteBIT) December 19, 2013
This is not the first time Apple has patented a non-tech solution. Earlier in 2016, the Cupertino giant has gone as far as to get a recycled paper bag patented under its name. The innovation isn’t creating the paper bag itself, which has such high proportions (around 60 percent) of recycled content. The company overcame this barrier by reinforcing the folds and gussets of the bag. And it also has a circular pizza box patented as well. That’s just great, ain’t it?
