Commuter Consumer

Dunkin' Donuts, which has its greatest percentage of sales during the morning commute, introduced its first lid specifically designed for use in cars in 1987. Two major redesigns have followed, in 1992 and in 2003.

Always, it comes back to the car. When 7-Eleven introduced new sandwich wraps last month, Joanne DeLorenzo, vice president of fresh foods merchandising, said one of the biggest challenges was making them car-friendly. To prevent dripping, the wrap makers used a cardboard sleeve. "Of course, the package had to fit in a car cup holder," she said.

If you are going to run a good convenience store, operators say, you have to keep in mind that drivers are spending so many hours in their cars, they don't have much time left over. "We are such a commuter culture that people are trying to make their time in the car more productive," 7-Eleven's Gardner says.

Hold That Cup

Lenard, of the NACS, says he and his wife have two kids, a minivan, eight cup holders and a whole range of products to fill them. Campbell Soup Co. offers Campbell's Soup at Hand in a microwavable container that has a lid with an opening from which to drink.

It fits into a cup holder. McDonald's puts a salad into a cup, which fits in a holder. 7-Eleven does the same with fresh-cut fruit, Lenard says. Recently, his wife bought facial tissue for the car. It pops out of a cup, which sits you-know-where. "Manufacturers are taking note of the commuting trend," he says.

The car cup holder is such an American phenomenon that Henry Petroski, a professor of engineering and of history at Duke University, devoted a chapter to it in his book, "Small Things Considered: Why There Is No Perfect Design."

He chuckles about the first ones, two small indentations revealed when the glove compartment was opened, or the plastic, holsterlike devices that slipped into the frame of the door. Slam the door, and there went your drink. The arrival of easy-open aluminum cans forced a change, he says. Drivers had to put the cans down somewhere when changing gears in those long-ago days when manual transmissions dominated. The cup holder moved to the console between the seats -- in American cars, though not in European models. Eventually, Americans shifted to automatic transmissions, perhaps making it easier to eat and drink, Petroski speculates.

While on a book tour, Petroski discovered even more about the cup holder. "People came up to me and said the final decision on what car they would buy came down to the cup holder," he says. "It hinged on which one worked best for them."

Many of the nation's cup holders are filled with products from the Solo Cup Co., which began making paper cone cups without lids in the 1940s and, in 1950, waxy cups for cold drinks served by drive-in restaurants. Old commuting hands will remember that early coffee lids, whatever the brand, came without perforations for a sipping hole. Drinking coffee in the car required fingers nimble enough to tear off a crescent-shaped piece from the edge of the lid, creating room to sip without tearing the whole thing apart.

From those modest beginnings, the industry has grown large.