Apple Actually Patented a Pizza Box

Apple has, since its inception, patented a lot of innovative and interesting technology — from advanced digital assistant functionalities to augmented reality mapping systems to… a pizza box.

No, seriously: Apple owns a patent for a circle-shaped pizza container. To be clear, Apple has no plans for a pizza delivery service — rather, the box is used at its campus cafes. But it’s a interesting bit of Cupertino trivia, recently unearthed in a Wired feature on Apple’s impressive new campus: Apple Park. According to the publication, it’s a personal pizza-sized container meant to let employees take their pies back to their desks.

Apple being Apple, the company wasn’t content just to make another plain pizza box. The Apple pizza container also has innovative features: including a series of holes in the lid so that the heat and moisture of the pies can vent, reducing the scourge of soggy crusts. The containers are also modular in nature, their design allows for stacks of them to be nestled on top of each other — maximizing storage space, according to the patent. Additionally, true to its legacy as an environmentally friendly company, the patent states that the pizza container can be made from re-used materials.

The container isn’t an Apple Park exclusive, however. The patent was first applied for seven years ago, and according to The Verge, was already in use at its existing campuses. One of its original inventors is listed as Francesco Longoni, the head of Apple’s food services department. And the pizza box seems to have a history at Cupertino, too. In the wake of Steve Jobs death, one box was apparently signed by Apple employees in honor of the late CEO, according to The Guardian.

A pizza box isn’t the strangest thing Cupertino has patented, either. In September 2016, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published an Apple application for a paper bag containing at least 60 percent post-consumer content.