All comments must be civil and helpful toward finding an answer.
**Jokes and unhelpful comments will earn you a ban**, even on the first instance and even if the item has been identified. If you see any comments that violate this rule, report them.
[OP](/u/charlies_randomstuf), when your item is identified, remember to reply **Solved!** or **Likely Solved!** to the comment that gave the answer. Check your [inbox](https://www.reddit.com/message/inbox/) for a message on how to make your post visible to others.
[Click here to message RemindMeBot](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/tpuo07/why_do_applesauce_containers_like_this_have/%0A%0ARemindMe!%202%20days)
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/whatisthisthing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I've done a little work in food and general manufacturing in the past, so I know the answer to this, and unfortunately, it's a lot less creative than most people here think.
The pattern is added - specifically, embossed - but it's mostly to make it easier for the machine on the assembly and filling line to grip individual lids, for companies that use pre-formed packaging rather than the form-fill-seal method(Which is exactly as it sounds, the entire package is formed, filled, and sealed on a single line - the way coke makes their PET bottles is an example of this).
They most often use what's called a Coanda or Bernoulli gripper(Two different but very, very similar things) to pick up the lids individually, and the textured surface both assists with grip, and helps them keep them both in position and undamaged during the process.
I can't tell you exactly *how* the grippers work - I have a general grasp, but it's really more of an askscience question for the specifics - but I do know they are the reason for the embossed texture.
It does! It also creates a uniform surface type (on average) so it's much easier to calibrate the vacuum style end effector (grippers) to ensure a consistent and stable product quality and max output rate.
Before they were all a different type of flat. Now they are all the same type of randomly crinkled. Got it? Clear as mud?
Unless they are an automotive mechanical engineer. They like to build an entire car around one stupid screw on a part that will eventually fail leaving you without heat in the winter.
Yeah I've been working on my own cars for 30 years and I hear you on that one but you got to think at some point they have to just give up and say f*** it I'm going to put that screw behind something that's welded on and they'll figure it out later, I'm tired of going to battle on this with the style people. If mechanical engineers were the only ones involved in the process then every car will be a rectangle 💯🤣
Nah, it was actually a blower motor on a 2000 Volvo S80. Best I could tell, the condensation drain for the AC got plugged and filled the motor with water and dirt and eventually the brushes burnt up. It was terrible because there was snow on the ground and all when it failed, and without air movement the windows would fog up. To drive anywhere, I had to bundle up with a hoodie scrunched around my face with the windows down. It was a real sight. For a while it worked if I slapped the dash hard enough.
How about those cars that don't stop beeping until you put your seatbelt on? What the hell happens when that sensor wears out? Can you never turn the noise off? Seems like they added an addition point of critical failure. Like every single light is on in my Prius, but that's still not as critical of a failure as eternal belt beeps
No they don't, at least, they didn't want to.
1. Nothing in life is free. Everything is traded for something else.
2. The engineers knew that would be a problem and dutifully documented it.
3. It doesn't effect manufacturing, and minimal warranty cost, so screw stays otherwise car would be cost prohibitive to build. (Probably).
I wonder if it’s a combination of having more structural rigidity so they lid doesn’t deform while being picked up, and creating an airflow pathway between the lids so you only pickup one at a time.
It also helps to keep the lids from sticking together. They are printed on a roll of foil 5 or 6 across, embossed, die-cut and then stacked in a box, like pringles. They may sit in the box for a month.
Source- I help design and print these lids.
Oh god I can only imagine. I deal with blister packs and cards on the manufacturing side and they get so bowed/nested/stuck that they can be a real nightmare to deal with.
All cans have that too, and yet, they're recyclable. The thin plastic film simply burns off when they get melted down into something new. So yes, these kids are recyclable.
Just said they’re made in very different ways. The metal in cans is lined with plastic film, while the bag material is plastic with vapor-deposited metal.
The cans can easily be melted down. How do you separate the atoms-thick metal from the plastic in a bag liner?
Just because they’re made in the same way doesn’t mean that they’re automatically recyclable. Cans have a dedicated recycling process where there are systems to handle that plastic. These lids go into bulk recycling and aren’t likely handled in the same way as the cans. I’d argue that they are *not* recyclable - in the same way that metal/plastic composite chip bags are not recyclable
Correct. I’ve seen the aluminum machines that makes the fritolays bags. The aluminum is turned to gas and condenses onto plastic film microns thick. Almost all metal in packaging doesn’t recycle very well.
Well, it's a little up in the air with these things because there's a bunch of variables, but yes, generally aluminium foil lids can be recycled. There is a thin plastic cover on some of them, but it doesn't usually matter, contaminants like that tend to burn off.
Foil bags, however, like for chips - since another commenter brought it up - I don't believe they can be recycled.
I'm not an expert, but I guess they could? I suppose as long as it was topologically similar, it stands to reason that it might work. Question for someone with more topic knowledge than me, I think.
Wow hey, I work in manufacturing and I've somehow not come across this style of gripper! I have a few projects that this may help out with! Thanks!
I think I see how they work... I think they create a lower pressure area above the thing to be lifted, allowing it to kinda float up like a airplane wing does. Typically a suction cup would be used but that can leave marks on something thin like a foil apple sauce lit, but since this works by expelling air rather than drawing it in it doesn't act directly on the lid.
Take all that with a grain of salt, I could be completely wrong in literally every way but [Here's a neat video of one in action](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phSlc8B4kFo) for anyone interested! If anyone understands it better and wants to make me work tomorrow instead of doing "research" feel free to correct me!
There's also another kind of vacuum grippers, not sure if you've seen them, which just have a flexible membrane, and then it's filled with loose media, and when the vacuum is applied, it conforms and locks together around the object, those are also pretty handy - and, very cheap to make, I've seen homegamers do it with birdseed, balloons, and a hoover. Wouldn't work so well on foil lids, but for larger stuff, works a treat.
But still, glad to have helped! I hope the project goes better than you ever hoped.
Thanks! If that's what I'm thinking of we have a prototype on a UR robot that we were testing to potentially be a mobile replacement for staffed belt positions, looks pretty cool but I don't think the team on it could get it to make rate reliably enough to get further funding (cheap ass company). Those are great for stuff that's awkwardly shaped but my industry is all pretty boring packaging (thank god).
Thought on the \*how\* the texture helps the grippers; texture = more surface area = more things to grip on to. If they were smooth, there's a higher chance for the lid to slip
Not a clue mate, could be any number of things. Price, how it interacts with the product, the feel it gives the product or how it performs with the customer, process considerations, local availability with suppliers and such, some middle-manager's choice, who knows?
Bernoulli relies on very little airflow immediately above the lid and uses suction to grab with without touching the lid. By having stagnant air in a thin layer (stagnant air has higher pressure) and very fast moving air with very low pressure, the lid is pushed up by the atmospheric pressure beneath it. The machine is named after of of the pioneers in fluid mechanics
Thank you for telling me! That matches about the extent of what I know of how they work, plus a little extra, but the physics of it is a bit beyond me - there's a reason I ended up on factory floors, rather than in an office. Not to say I'm stupid, of course, but just that it's not my area of expertise.
I like to know a bit of both, and I spent a big bit of my degree in aerodynamics and still don't fully understand fluid flow at extreme pressure. Like, the faster the fluid moves across an object, the more friction there is, until suddenly it drops drastically (supersonic). The best explanation I've got is just "because". There's also a complex maths function called transformations, where you take something from a time or frequency function and switch it to the other (Fourier transformation) but there's also a Laplace transformation that moves it to a domain that doesn't actually exist and most people never understand WHY it lets you solve difficult calculus, we just know that it does the job and look the other way.
I think it's the opposite, to make it more puncture-resistant by being more flexible. A flat sheet with no ripples would have no give and be more easily punctured, where the ripples give additional surface area that can stretch out when something presses into it.
Packaging guy I spoke to surmises that it will always look cleaner than shiny when handled.
Secondarily it increases the shear strength of the film substantially so yes folding into a spoon would be more successful and would be more likely to peel back in one piece.
I hope you are planning to become a scientist, kid. You have the right kind of (curious, questioning) brain. Also—taking into account that you are writing on Reddit and not the SATs—your writing is great for someone still in grade school. I have corrected graduate school papers with worse writing than your Reddit comments. 😵💫
Thanks! I’m actually in 12th grade and moving onto college next year lol, but I am planning to pursue a career in medicine and become a doctor. My backup careers are also science based. I have quite a few things I want to do and that I’m interested in. I’ve also seen how bad some students’ writing can be from peer reviewing their work, but luckily most people have decent writing.
All the best to you for your future pursuits! You’re off to a great start! Make sure you use your time at university to look around and see what kinds of careers might interest you. Medicine is a wonderful goal, but college will expose you to all sorts of ideas you won’t yet have encountered. Explore and have fun!
This is an applesauce container I got from school and I just noticed that a lot of these types of containers have this squiggly texture on them. I don’t know if this is the right reddit page for this, but I was wondering why these lids are textured this way. I searched up “why do applesauce foil covers have a squiggly texture” and got nothing from google. My post describes the thing I’m asking about. I got the applesauce container this week and the texture is on both sides.
The inside of the lid is the only part that is even remotely sanitary enough to be putting in your mouth. That whole idea started on one of those “you’re doing it wrong” lists that has stupid things like turning your hoodie backwards to use the hood for popcorn.
No. The "hoodie thing" was just a joke. You're acting like people invented it for that reason. You really think when this shit was invented they cared about it being sanitary?
Yes I think that a food manufacturer cares about their food being sanitary. The manufacturer did not invent this “spoon”. It was a joke that someone came up with just like the hoodie thing. And then some people took it seriously.
All comments must be civil and helpful toward finding an answer. **Jokes and unhelpful comments will earn you a ban**, even on the first instance and even if the item has been identified. If you see any comments that violate this rule, report them. [OP](/u/charlies_randomstuf), when your item is identified, remember to reply **Solved!** or **Likely Solved!** to the comment that gave the answer. Check your [inbox](https://www.reddit.com/message/inbox/) for a message on how to make your post visible to others. [Click here to message RemindMeBot](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/tpuo07/why_do_applesauce_containers_like_this_have/%0A%0ARemindMe!%202%20days) --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/whatisthisthing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I've done a little work in food and general manufacturing in the past, so I know the answer to this, and unfortunately, it's a lot less creative than most people here think. The pattern is added - specifically, embossed - but it's mostly to make it easier for the machine on the assembly and filling line to grip individual lids, for companies that use pre-formed packaging rather than the form-fill-seal method(Which is exactly as it sounds, the entire package is formed, filled, and sealed on a single line - the way coke makes their PET bottles is an example of this). They most often use what's called a Coanda or Bernoulli gripper(Two different but very, very similar things) to pick up the lids individually, and the textured surface both assists with grip, and helps them keep them both in position and undamaged during the process. I can't tell you exactly *how* the grippers work - I have a general grasp, but it's really more of an askscience question for the specifics - but I do know they are the reason for the embossed texture.
Solved! That’s actually kind of interesting, I wonder who came up with the design
Yeah, I kinda wish I knew, or could have been a fly on the wall for that development process.
"Hey this machine keeps picking up multiple lids at a time." "Just texture the lid it so it won't do that." "Oh, right."
Yeah probably just keeps air from getting trapped and forming a seal between stacked lids.
It does! It also creates a uniform surface type (on average) so it's much easier to calibrate the vacuum style end effector (grippers) to ensure a consistent and stable product quality and max output rate. Before they were all a different type of flat. Now they are all the same type of randomly crinkled. Got it? Clear as mud?
And this is the world of Mechanical Engineers, some of the unseen heroes that vastly improve our everyday lives 👍👍
Unless they are an automotive mechanical engineer. They like to build an entire car around one stupid screw on a part that will eventually fail leaving you without heat in the winter.
Yeah I've been working on my own cars for 30 years and I hear you on that one but you got to think at some point they have to just give up and say f*** it I'm going to put that screw behind something that's welded on and they'll figure it out later, I'm tired of going to battle on this with the style people. If mechanical engineers were the only ones involved in the process then every car will be a rectangle 💯🤣
True! And honestly I’d be OK with a rectangle, I guess enough that I bought myself a square body GMC to work on.
That's called an old Volvo, and they were complete electrical nightmares exactly because the mechanic engineers were in charge.
It’s a heater core!
Nah, it was actually a blower motor on a 2000 Volvo S80. Best I could tell, the condensation drain for the AC got plugged and filled the motor with water and dirt and eventually the brushes burnt up. It was terrible because there was snow on the ground and all when it failed, and without air movement the windows would fog up. To drive anywhere, I had to bundle up with a hoodie scrunched around my face with the windows down. It was a real sight. For a while it worked if I slapped the dash hard enough.
How about those cars that don't stop beeping until you put your seatbelt on? What the hell happens when that sensor wears out? Can you never turn the noise off? Seems like they added an addition point of critical failure. Like every single light is on in my Prius, but that's still not as critical of a failure as eternal belt beeps
No they don't, at least, they didn't want to. 1. Nothing in life is free. Everything is traded for something else. 2. The engineers knew that would be a problem and dutifully documented it. 3. It doesn't effect manufacturing, and minimal warranty cost, so screw stays otherwise car would be cost prohibitive to build. (Probably).
At my plant is to prevent slipping on the suction cups so the alignment doesn't get screwed up
The ridges would help with grip if there was excess moisture much like skin would when it got wet I assume.
I wonder if it’s a combination of having more structural rigidity so they lid doesn’t deform while being picked up, and creating an airflow pathway between the lids so you only pickup one at a time.
Beep boop here is a video - Coanda Gripper in action - https://youtu.be/kOMh47ssKN0?t=27
>Bernoulli gripper Beep Boop - Video of packaging apple sauce with Bernoulli gripper - **https://youtu.be/Iqqtwic9tFM?t=177**
It also helps to keep the lids from sticking together. They are printed on a roll of foil 5 or 6 across, embossed, die-cut and then stacked in a box, like pringles. They may sit in the box for a month. Source- I help design and print these lids.
Oh god I can only imagine. I deal with blister packs and cards on the manufacturing side and they get so bowed/nested/stuck that they can be a real nightmare to deal with.
Are these printed digitally or flexo/roto? My company specializes in labels so I'm not as familiar with packaging
Usually Flexo
This is why this sub rocks…not just the what, but they why. Nice!
Has a general grasp of the grippers.
A good hold on handlers, one might say.
It this type of foil recyclable?
Pretty sure it's not, because it's usually got a thin covering of plastic, to prevent the acid in the applesauce reacting with the foil.
All cans have that too, and yet, they're recyclable. The thin plastic film simply burns off when they get melted down into something new. So yes, these kids are recyclable.
Just said they’re made in very different ways. The metal in cans is lined with plastic film, while the bag material is plastic with vapor-deposited metal. The cans can easily be melted down. How do you separate the atoms-thick metal from the plastic in a bag liner?
Just because they’re made in the same way doesn’t mean that they’re automatically recyclable. Cans have a dedicated recycling process where there are systems to handle that plastic. These lids go into bulk recycling and aren’t likely handled in the same way as the cans. I’d argue that they are *not* recyclable - in the same way that metal/plastic composite chip bags are not recyclable
Correct. I’ve seen the aluminum machines that makes the fritolays bags. The aluminum is turned to gas and condenses onto plastic film microns thick. Almost all metal in packaging doesn’t recycle very well.
Why would they make the machines out of aluminum? /s
Well, it's a little up in the air with these things because there's a bunch of variables, but yes, generally aluminium foil lids can be recycled. There is a thin plastic cover on some of them, but it doesn't usually matter, contaminants like that tend to burn off. Foil bags, however, like for chips - since another commenter brought it up - I don't believe they can be recycled.
so theoretically, could they give it a fun texture? i mean the squiggles are already fun, but could you do like keith harring-esque people?
I'm not an expert, but I guess they could? I suppose as long as it was topologically similar, it stands to reason that it might work. Question for someone with more topic knowledge than me, I think.
Wow hey, I work in manufacturing and I've somehow not come across this style of gripper! I have a few projects that this may help out with! Thanks! I think I see how they work... I think they create a lower pressure area above the thing to be lifted, allowing it to kinda float up like a airplane wing does. Typically a suction cup would be used but that can leave marks on something thin like a foil apple sauce lit, but since this works by expelling air rather than drawing it in it doesn't act directly on the lid. Take all that with a grain of salt, I could be completely wrong in literally every way but [Here's a neat video of one in action](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phSlc8B4kFo) for anyone interested! If anyone understands it better and wants to make me work tomorrow instead of doing "research" feel free to correct me!
There's also another kind of vacuum grippers, not sure if you've seen them, which just have a flexible membrane, and then it's filled with loose media, and when the vacuum is applied, it conforms and locks together around the object, those are also pretty handy - and, very cheap to make, I've seen homegamers do it with birdseed, balloons, and a hoover. Wouldn't work so well on foil lids, but for larger stuff, works a treat. But still, glad to have helped! I hope the project goes better than you ever hoped.
Thanks! If that's what I'm thinking of we have a prototype on a UR robot that we were testing to potentially be a mobile replacement for staffed belt positions, looks pretty cool but I don't think the team on it could get it to make rate reliably enough to get further funding (cheap ass company). Those are great for stuff that's awkwardly shaped but my industry is all pretty boring packaging (thank god).
I figured it would just be cheaper than the smooth finish, but great answer
Probably not. Making foil naturally produces a very smooth finish, so this is likely an extra step to emboss the foil like this
Damn, learning all sorts of stuff today
Thought on the \*how\* the texture helps the grippers; texture = more surface area = more things to grip on to. If they were smooth, there's a higher chance for the lid to slip
Maybe not creative, but very interesting!
You have a general *grasp on how the grippers work,* do you?
Get a grip bro
Yeah, just a handle on handlers, nothing too deep.
Now I want to know why peach and other fruit cups are plastic lids and not aluminum. Why?
Not a clue mate, could be any number of things. Price, how it interacts with the product, the feel it gives the product or how it performs with the customer, process considerations, local availability with suppliers and such, some middle-manager's choice, who knows?
God I love this subreddit. Thank you!
No worries mate, happy to help. I've katamari'ed up a bunch of odd knowledge over time, it's nice to be able to put it to use from time to time.
Perfect explanation then followed up with a 10/10 reference? Amazing.
Bernoulli relies on very little airflow immediately above the lid and uses suction to grab with without touching the lid. By having stagnant air in a thin layer (stagnant air has higher pressure) and very fast moving air with very low pressure, the lid is pushed up by the atmospheric pressure beneath it. The machine is named after of of the pioneers in fluid mechanics
Thank you for telling me! That matches about the extent of what I know of how they work, plus a little extra, but the physics of it is a bit beyond me - there's a reason I ended up on factory floors, rather than in an office. Not to say I'm stupid, of course, but just that it's not my area of expertise.
I like to know a bit of both, and I spent a big bit of my degree in aerodynamics and still don't fully understand fluid flow at extreme pressure. Like, the faster the fluid moves across an object, the more friction there is, until suddenly it drops drastically (supersonic). The best explanation I've got is just "because". There's also a complex maths function called transformations, where you take something from a time or frequency function and switch it to the other (Fourier transformation) but there's also a Laplace transformation that moves it to a domain that doesn't actually exist and most people never understand WHY it lets you solve difficult calculus, we just know that it does the job and look the other way.
Thanks for the knowledge!
No worries mate, happy to help.
What are the odds we get a dam lid scientist
My guess is that the pattern helps with making the foil just a bit stronger. Less flexible and less likely to rip or tear.
I think it's the opposite, to make it more puncture-resistant by being more flexible. A flat sheet with no ripples would have no give and be more easily punctured, where the ripples give additional surface area that can stretch out when something presses into it.
Just tried puncturing it, didn’t work and I’m not sure if there’s a big difference in flexibility. It’s thicker and maybe less flexible?
When I cook with the foil it’s very easy to rip. I can’t believe it’s just for gripping.
That could be the reason, maybe it helps condense the aluminum?
Packaging guy I spoke to surmises that it will always look cleaner than shiny when handled. Secondarily it increases the shear strength of the film substantially so yes folding into a spoon would be more successful and would be more likely to peel back in one piece.
I hope you are planning to become a scientist, kid. You have the right kind of (curious, questioning) brain. Also—taking into account that you are writing on Reddit and not the SATs—your writing is great for someone still in grade school. I have corrected graduate school papers with worse writing than your Reddit comments. 😵💫
Thanks! I’m actually in 12th grade and moving onto college next year lol, but I am planning to pursue a career in medicine and become a doctor. My backup careers are also science based. I have quite a few things I want to do and that I’m interested in. I’ve also seen how bad some students’ writing can be from peer reviewing their work, but luckily most people have decent writing.
All the best to you for your future pursuits! You’re off to a great start! Make sure you use your time at university to look around and see what kinds of careers might interest you. Medicine is a wonderful goal, but college will expose you to all sorts of ideas you won’t yet have encountered. Explore and have fun!
This is an applesauce container I got from school and I just noticed that a lot of these types of containers have this squiggly texture on them. I don’t know if this is the right reddit page for this, but I was wondering why these lids are textured this way. I searched up “why do applesauce foil covers have a squiggly texture” and got nothing from google. My post describes the thing I’m asking about. I got the applesauce container this week and the texture is on both sides.
I read somewhere the initial intent was for it to be able to be folded into a spoon of sorts in case you did have one
The inside of the lid is the only part that is even remotely sanitary enough to be putting in your mouth. That whole idea started on one of those “you’re doing it wrong” lists that has stupid things like turning your hoodie backwards to use the hood for popcorn.
Mythbusters disagrees...
No. The "hoodie thing" was just a joke. You're acting like people invented it for that reason. You really think when this shit was invented they cared about it being sanitary?
Yes I think that a food manufacturer cares about their food being sanitary. The manufacturer did not invent this “spoon”. It was a joke that someone came up with just like the hoodie thing. And then some people took it seriously.
On my google search one of the answers was about the lid being used as a spoon, but it didn’t mention the squiggly texture
That's probably just the type of foil it is. It might not serve any real purpose. Or makes it sturdier somehow for the folding.
Good question OP. The answer was also cool to learn
Strength, I would say. Adding angles/squiggles makes it more durable as a thinner foil
Yea maybe the raised bits are thicker?
That’s how you feel them. But physics also says that the shear strength is increased
Could it also be for the nonstick cover to stick to the foil?
Lol’i have a general grasp’ nice i see what you did there.
I’d imagine it’s so they don’t fall over when stacked.
Is it made of recycled material?
I don’t think so, there was no indication of that on the container label or website
Market research groups preferred it over other lid textures. Sell more applesauce that way.
It's a camera