Dipped Donut Losing Top Problem

There was a box of left over donuts that were sitting in the kitchen at the office today. I normally am not a donut eater, but free donuts are hard to resist, and I was thinking of putting together a worthy Ig Nobel study to determine what donuts are eaten last so I opened the box. Inside, I was disappointed to find that one of the donuts was actually a flavour that I would have eaten, but the maple dip had attached itself to the top of the box.

Eww.

This of course was not very appetizing, but it did bring to light something that I have seen often enough in my lifetime: Donut boxes where all the flavour coating gets stuck to the top of the box. This happens often on hot summer days or when donuts are thicker than the box height.

I wondered why nobody had ever tackled this problem. Probably because nobody thinks it is a problem.

But seeing that it is lunch time, I gave it a minute of thought and came up with this idea: Curved box covers. There would be no need to change the box design completely. Just make the top of the box a little bigger than the bottom, and make sure you stuff the edges of the box top inside the edges of the bottom part of the box. It would then look something like this:

Curved top.

Which would do two things: Give the top of the box more rigidity to prevent sagging and provide ample height for the donuts inside.

Now, I do see a potential issue with this idea. Closing a box and forcing the top flaps inside takes longer than just closing the box with the flaps on the outside. At a high throughput place like Tim Horton's this could be a deal breaker, but during off peak hours, your clients may thank you..

I wonder if this idea is patentable? Probably not. Ah well, there goes my million dollar idea..