Hey! You! Do you even test these things out before you manufacture them?
I’m talking, of course, to the designers of yogurt containers. Almost every single one of them has something wrong with the design that makes eating a container of yogurt more difficult than it should be.
1) The original Yoplait “inverted” container. Great for stacking, TERRIBLE for eating out of. The inverted shape means the top is just wider than the bowl of your spoon, while the base is almost 1.5 times as big. You end up getting yogurt all around the stem of the spoon while trying to scoop out the contents. And when you get to the bottom of the cup and are trying to scrape the remains onto your spoon, there’s only about two angles you can get the spoon to that will actually pick up yogurt. I end up running the spoon around and around the inside for some ridiculous amount of time to pick up the tiniest amount of remaining yogurt.
2) Yoplait’s Greek yogurt. Although this one has the right standard-cup-type-shape, it has a nice little notch on the inside where the cup flares out at the top. You end up getting all kinds of yogurt stuck around on this rim, and you can’t take your spoon and scoop straight from the bottom to top without having the spoon “jump” from one edge of the cup to the edge where the rim is – if you’re not careful, you can lose a spoonful this way.
3) Dannon yogurt. Same as #2 above, but not quite as pronounced. However, if I recall, the bottom isn’t completely flat so it makes it difficult to scoop across the container when you’re nearing the end of the cup.
4) Activia. Seriously, have you ever tried to open one of these? As soon as you peel one of the corners back enough to let air in, it rushes in and yogurt comes flying out and usually lands right on the crotch of your pants. And when you try to clean up yogurt from the crotch of your pants, there’s only one thing in the world the resulting stain/mark looks like. It’s pretty damn embarrassing. Other than this, though, the container is perfect and you can get out all the yogurt without hassle. My advice? Point it away from you (preferably towards someone else’s crotch) and open away, and then enjoy the obvious winner of the yogurt cup design competition.
RossRuns 
I hate the yogurt IED most of all. All you want is breakfast, but Kablooey!
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Yogurt IED! I love it – my favorite term of the week, I think.
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It’s why I stopped eating yogurt at work: I don’t want to spend the rest of the day hiding a wet stain on my pants or shirt, and worst, having to take the pants later to the dry cleaners. Dairy is really hard to get out of fabric.
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The other hazard with the Activia style cup (and I agree on the IED aspect of it, and have learned to point it away), is that a cat can hear that foil being quietly peeled off the top from two rooms away, and then inserts himself between you and container no matter how you try to avoid it, causing windmilling of arm and spoon just to keep cat lips and paws off it, increasing the chance of spillage.
In a not-unrelated note, my cat Sodapop would weigh in that the Activia container needs to be wider for a cat muzzle to reach all the way to the last bits in the bottom.
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Yogurt isn’t the only thing that’s affected by some STUPID design that makes them supposedly easier to stack.
I submit: rounded bottoms on canned goods. I like the old design, that allows me to use a de-crimping can opener to take off the bottom and top lids so I can flatten the can for easier recycling. Cans with rounded bottom lids? Forget it; I can’t take that off.
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Hear Hear! I hate the yogurt “burp” action!
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…or you open ones in those 6-pack connecty ones (like the Activa), and you open another one by accident. I wonder if there are people sitting around a table trying to figure out ways to package yoghurt, and just haven’t figured out how to do it in a way that doesn’t annoy the hell out of us. In the US I fixed this by going with the custard-style every time. That way, there’s no goop to eek out while i’m trying top open the container. Lol! I am currently having issues with my apple sauce, which is in similar container packaging. In Europe they have the kiddie ones, which are in juice-packages with a screw top, so you just suck it out. Handy and no mess. I found some here in NZ, but they taste like crap.
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you should go with gogurt. none of those problems and you don’t even need a spoon. Although, you would be an adult eating gogurt.
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I have to say, it never occurred to me to evaluate yogurt container designs, but you’re absolutely right. I usually buy my yogurt in big containers, but every now and again I have to lick yogurt off of my fingers because it went everywhere except the spoon.
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I’m just relieved to know I’m not the only one on the planet who ponders such things. Either we are both brilliant or we both suffer from the same disorder. I’m going with A.
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Me too!
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I busted out laughing at your description of the activia cups. I agree the people that design the yogurt containers must not ever eat yogurt from those same containers.
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