RENATO Bialetti, the Italian businessman who turned Moka coffee pots into a household name around the world, has been buried inside one of his aluminium pots.

Mr Bialetti passed away last week at the age of 93, according to Italian newspaper La Stampa.

In accordance with his wishes and that of his family, his ashes were placed inside a Moka pot before he was buried in the family plot in Omegna, in northern Italy.

Alfonso Bialetti, Renato's father, bought the patent for the pots in 1933, but struggled to make significant sales.

Renato launched a marketing campaign when he took over the business in the 1940s, placing a caricature of himself on the pots.

‘L’omino con i baffi,’ or 'the little man with a mustache', is a famous symbol of the brand in Italy.

More than 300 million of the coffee pots have been sold across the world since the 1940s.

In 2008 the American inventor of the Pringles can was buried in one of his tubes.

Fred Baur, a chemist from Cincinnait, was so proud of the crisp tube that he wanted one to accompany him to his grave, his children said.