Why Don't All Cans Have Pull-Tabs?

eighteen seventies. For the seventy some intervening years, there were likely a lot of bashed or cut fingers from hammers and chisels, knives, and other less specialized or less safe tools. These days, can openers are widely available, but not every can needs one. Many canned foods and drinks come with a poll tab that's even more convenient. So why do some cans have them and others don't. The short answer is money, But for the long answer, let's look at

the history of this innovation. The story goes that in nineteen fifty nine, a humble engineer from Dayton, Ohio, by the name of Ernie Fras was enjoying a family picnic when he realized that he'd forgotten to bring a church key you see, although beer had cut in cans starting in nineteen thirty five, those cans had solid lids, the same as any other can. To access the contents, you'd use a tool called a church key that would pop

a hole in the lid. These are still sometimes used, especially in bars, to open things like canned pineapple juice. But so at this picnic, a Phrase searched in vain for something to open his beer with and settled on the bumper of his car, which resulted in a messy geyser of beer. Always the engineer, Phrase vowed to come up with an invention that would eliminate the need for

a church key altogether. In nineteen sixty three, he patented the easy Open Been lid, a which, similar to modern beer and soda cans, had a shape scored into the top and a polltab riveted onto that shape at one end, so by pulling the tab, the weakened parts of the aluminum would give way and you could peel the scorge shape off, leaving a hole in the lid. Phrase's first customer was Iron City Beer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which marketed

this revolutionary poll tab technology as the snaptop. Frase would pass away in nineteen eighty nine, but his company DRT is still making its patented easy open ends for food and beverage cans. For the article this episode is based on How Stuffworks, spoke with Tom Cruthers, who's worked at DRT for forty years, most recently as its VP of sales.

They asked him why, at nearly sixty years after the invention of the easy open can, only some canned foods come with pole tabs while many still require a can opener. Crothers said, I wish all cans had easy open tabs with beep even busier. Basically, what it gets down to is a cost issue. Easy open ends are more expensive than sanitary ends, a sanitary end being the industry lingo for the solid can lids that require a separate can opener.

You may have never thought twice about how your can of, say, tomato soup, was made. But this is precision engineering, just saying. DRT has divisions that deal with aerospace and medical manufacturing, and Crothers says that the metal packaging division there, which designs and sells the industrial machines that stamp out easy open ends, is much more precise than anything else. They do.

The permissible variation in the measurements in their packaging products is mere microns across, the micron being one thousandth of a millimeter. Okay. There are two parts to every hand, the shell, which is the aluminum body, and the ends, which are the top and bottom. For a can with a plain old sanitary top, both ends are stamped from a flat sheet of metal and sealed to the shell

with a process called double seaming. You can picture this double seam like two question marks attached by their crooks. All right, say you draw a normal question mark on a piece of paper. You can think of the straight vertical line of the mark as the side of the can. Then draw a second question mark, starting the tip of the crook inside the crook of the first one, and extending the straight line of the mark in a horizontal line over top of the first mark. That's your lid.

The two crooks and the way that they curve around each other form the double seam. Manufacturers crimp them together using a bit of glue to seal them. This is not simple, but cans with a pole tab are more expensive because there are more steps to the manufacturing process. First, the end piece destined to be, the lid has to

be scored with incredible precision. The scoring needs to be shallow enough that it remains strong enough to hold the contents inside, often under pressure or to withstand a fall from a store shelf. But the scoring has to be deep enough that the lid will pop open easily when the tab is pulled. That's why Drt's machines are tuned down to the micron. And then there's the poll tab itself, a separate piece of aluminum that needs to be stamped from a sheet of aluminum and riveted to the end.

That extra material and tooling also costs money, which is passed on to consumers in the price of a poll tab can. There's no argument that easy open lids are well easier to open than containers that require a can opener, but that convenience comes at a cost. That's why you're more likely to find poll tabs on name brand items with a higher priced Cruther's explained a lot of the decision about whether to use an easy open end has

to do with brand image. If you pick up a can of Progresso or Campbell's soup, you're going to find easy open ends. If you find a smaller brand or a store brand, those will most likely have sanitary ends. In some markets, particularly in the developing world, cost is the primary consideration. Even big brands might forego poll tabs in those markets to keep the price down. And then

there are transport considerations. Since easy open lids are scored, they are slightly more likely to break open if traveling over rough roads. A sanitary end is going to be more secure in places with less developed infrastructure. Today's episode is based on the article why don't all food cans have polltabs? On HowStuffWorks dot Com written by Dave Ruse. Brain Stuff is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuff works dot Com, and it is produced by

Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.