Whole eating from a plastic container that had 4 different pockets in it, I noticed that the liquid food tends to enter the grooves in the container. It got me thinking what is the purpose of these and why can’t there be containers that have a smooth interior?
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Depends on the container, but largely they’re to make the container more sturdy with less material – the same reason that soup cans are corrugated. Soda cans have internal pressure that helps hold them up against being crushed, but soup cans don’t. The corrugation adds strength without needing to make the metal thicker.
Cheap, plastic containers need to be as cheap as possible, so they want to use as little plastic as possible. A millimeter of extra thickness doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re making millions of units, that tiny cost adds up.
See also: corrugated cardboard, corrugated metal sheets (like for roofs), etc.
Depending on the purpose of the container, it may also be there to increase grip for things like twisting off a screw-on top.
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