News

Thinking round the box

March 23, 2005

A round pizza box seems logical since the majority of pizzas are round.

And considering that the last groundbreaking pizza industry invention was nearly three decades ago (the conveyor oven), a round box is at least innovative.

But will pizza operators care enough about a circular box to think outside of the tried-and-true square one?

John Harvey, inventor of the round pizza box, called Presseal, believes they will, once they know more about it.

According to Harvey, Presseal's shape keeps the pizza from sliding around inside the box, its construction and circular design make it stronger than standard square boxes, and the materials used in his box trap grease better than regular boxes.

Nice, but is all of that necessary?

"I think so," said Harvey. Harvey believes the departure from square to round could be as impactful as the industry's previous transition to corrugated pizza boxes from clayboard boxes. "It's what a pizza box should look like, and it works so much better than what's out there now."

Harvey is no stranger to the foodservice packaging industry. In the 1980s he developed a circular corrugated cardboard pizza box for paper goods giant Dixie.

"We already had the development pretty well ironed out, but in the end it lacked the marketing oomph it needed to get them to the pizzerias," said Harvey.

Some 25 years later, Harvey learned that a Columbus, Ohio-based manufacturer, Graylex, had developed an efficient method of forming corrugated board, and he traveled there to show off his once-deceased round box idea. Impressed, Graylex moved to develop the machinery to produce it.

Though still largely the same, Harvey said several key improvements have been made to the box. One is a unique cohesive seal, which allows the box's top and bottom to close together only when face-to-face, not when nested back to front. To deter seepage, a grease-absorbent coating has been added to the box's bottom, and to help steam escape, small holes were cut around the box top's perimeter.

The Presseal also is a tremendous space saver, Harvey said. Compared to standard assembled pizza boxes, Presseal boxes take up only one-tenth of the space. Harvey also claims operators can save labor dollars since Presseal boxes don't require assembly.

Problem solver or better mousetrap?

Pizza consultant "Big Dave" Ostrander said he likes the round box idea, and that it's definitely a viable option for the industry. Selling a new box isn't Harvey's challenge, he said, it's getting people to see the value in something new when the old model works pretty well.

"What you've got to remember is that people aren't buying boxes, they're buying solutions," Ostrander said. "When corrugated boxes came out, we bought a solution. They required a lot less labor to put together (than clayboard), the corrugate insulated much better and there wasn't a crushing problem."

Ostrander believes that, to succeed, Harvey's group will need someone who will spend the money necessary to make the boxes without any customers.