square deal

Leave it to the Japanese. The developers of some of the world's most ingenious consumer products have come up with yet another innovation: square watermelons.

We learned about the block-shaped fruit from the blog Supply Chains Rock, maintained by Chris Sciacca, an IBM public relations pro currently working for Big Blue in Switzerland. Why should we care about square watermelons? As Sciacca points out, there's less dead space between these melons than with the traditional variety. And because their shape allows shippers to pack them in stackable square cartons, more of these melons can fit in a truckload. So what is now simply a fashionable—and expensive—novelty could eventually lead to substantial freight savings for produce growers.

You can watch a Japanese-language YouTube video showing how the unusual melons are packed and shipped via Supply Chains Rock; just scroll down to "square is now hip for watermelons."