See How Stackable Potato Chips (Like Pringles) Get Made

Pringles—and other stackable chips like them—are known for their distinctive concave shape, good for making an impromptu duckbill, eating as many as you can in a single bite, or just shoveling into your mouth as is normal with all manner of endlessly snackable treats.

So just how do they get that perfect curve? Machines, of course. In the video below from the Science Channel’s How It’s Made, you can see the full journey of the stackable chip (in this case, Chip Flix), from a potato-flake-and-water mix, to a big potato sheet, to a delicious fried chip. Along the way there are cutters and a rolling mold and even a real, live human being to make sure the individual pieces are as perfect as can be. The whole process only takes about 20 minutes, and while you probably already knew that these delectable creations weren’t the most natural or organic of food products, watching this might make you think twice next time you want to pop open a can.

A bit of bonus canned-chip content: the name Pringles is sort of random. When Procter & Gamble introduced the snack in 1968, they wanted a name that started with a "P," so a brand manager used a Cincinnati phonebook to make a list of street names that began with the letter. Pringle Drive in Finneytown, Ohio had a nice ring to it and, more importantly, was available as a trademark.

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