Individual food items such as cookies, crackers, and the like are often stored in multi-compartment trays where each compartment stores stacks of cookies or crackers. Such trays are typically constructed from a thin polymer material and are susceptible to deformation due to compressive forces that may be applied to the trays during manufacturing, packaging and/or transportation of the trays. For example, during packaging, the cookie trays may abut against each other while moving on a conveyor such that compressive forces may be applied against some of the trays by adjacent trays. Such compressive forces may lead to the buckling of the trays and/or the deformation/distortion of the individual compartments or compartments that retail the cookies. Such deformation/distortion is undesirable, since it may result in damage (e.g., cracking, breaking, etc.) to the food items stored therein, rendering such trays unusable for sale to consumers.
A tray for retaining a plurality of items, such as food items, includes a plurality of compartments separated by one or more dividers. The tray includes a bottom wall portion, a sidewall portion extending upwardly from the bottom wall portion, and the one or more dividers. The bottom wall portion, the sidewall portion and the one or more dividers together define a plurality of interconnected compartments each configured to retain a stack of the food items accessible via an opening, opposite the bottom wall portion. A flange portion is disposed about the opening and at an opposite end of the sidewall portion relative to the bottom wall portion. The flange portion includes a peripheral rim extending outwardly from the sidewall portion. Each of the one or more dividers separates adjacent compartments from each other. The one or more dividers each extend upwardly from the bottom wall portion and terminate adjacent the peripheral rim. Each of the dividers has a pair of opposing divider walls positioned at an angle relative to each other and joined at an apex. Each of the one or more dividers is connected to the peripheral rim by a pair of scalloped ledges, one at each end of the divider. The sidewall portion includes a pair of opposing end walls each having stiffening ribs extending from adjacent the bottom portion toward the flange portion and spaced from the flange portion by a segment of the end wall. In response to a compressing force in a direction substantially perpendicular to the end walls, the angle between the divider walls of each of the one or more dividers increases compared to when there is no compressing force.
In some embodiments, each of the end walls includes a non-corrugated portion not including the stiffening ribs, with the non-corrugated portion extending from distal ends of the stiffening ribs to the peripheral rim. In one aspect, each of the two side panels includes a curved portion including the stiffening ribs and a straight non-corrugated portion not including the stiffening ribs.
If the tray includes three compartments, then the bottom wall portion includes a first bottom panel, a second bottom panel, and a third bottom panel, and each of the first, second, and third bottom panels are generally rectangular and planar and do not include any of the stiffening ribs. If the tray includes four compartments, then four such bottom panels can be included.
In some aspects, each of the compartments of the tray includes a front panel and a rear panel not including the stiffening ribs, and at least one side panel including the stiffening ribs extending along an entire length thereof. In some embodiments, each of the first and second dividers includes two interconnected side panels including the stiffening ribs extending along the entire length thereof.
The peripheral rim may include an upwardly-facing surface having an inner edge intersecting with the sidewall portion and an outer edge intersecting with the raised perimeter. The outer flange may include an upwardly facing surface having an inner edge intersecting with the raised perimeter and a free outer edge. The upwardly-facing surface of the peripheral rim may include a plurality of downwardly-extending protrusions that are configured to rest on the peripheral rim of a second tray when the second tray is stacked on top of the tray. The downwardly-extending protrusions are sized such that the peripheral rims of each in the stack are spaced to facilitate denesting of trays from the stack.
In some embodiments, a substantially horizontal upwardly-facing portion of each of the scalloped ledges comprises a strengthening rib extending inwardly from the sidewall portion. Each of the scalloped ledges may be interconnected with a respective one of the first and second dividers by the strengthening rib. A substantially vertical inwardly-facing portion of each of the scalloped ledges may extend upwardly from the strengthening rib along the sidewall portion and terminates at the peripheral edge.
The tray may be made of at least one material including, but not limited to: general purpose polystyrene (PS), high impact polystyrene (HIPS), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), recycled polyethylene terephthalate (RPET), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polypropylene (PP), high density polyethylene (HDPE), propylene ethylene copolymers, foamed polymer(s), paperboard and combinations thereof. The compartments of the tray may be shaped to each retain a plurality of substantially circular food items.
The tray 100 has a one-piece construction, and may be thermoformed, injection-molded, blow-molded, or the like. In some embodiments, the tray 100 is made from one or more polymer-based materials, and includes one or more polymers, co-polymers, and/or plastic materials. For example, the tray 100 may be constructed from general purpose polystyrene (PS), high impact polystyrene (HIPS), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), recycled polyethylene terephthalate (RPET), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polypropylene (PP), high density polyethylene (HDPE), propylene ethylene copolymers, foamed polymer(s), paperboard and the like, or combinations thereof. While the tray 100 has been illustrated in the accompanying drawing figures as being made of a material that is not transparent, it will be appreciated that the tray 100 may be made to be transparent, such that portions of the food items 90 (indicated in dotted lines in
With reference to
The sidewall portion of the exemplary tray 100 illustrated in
The first compartment 114 of the exemplary tray 100 includes a bottom panel 120, a front panel 126, a rear panel 132 opposite the front panel 126, a first side panel 138, and a second side panel 140 opposite the first side panel 138. The second compartment 116 of the exemplary tray 100 includes a bottom panel 122, a front panel 128, a rear panel 134 opposite the front panel 128, a first side panel 142, and a second side panel 144 opposite the first side panel 142. The third compartment 118 of the exemplary tray 100 includes a bottom panel 124, a front panel 130, a rear panel 136 opposite the front panel 130, a first side panel 146, and a second side panel 148 opposite the first side panel 146. In the illustrated embodiment, the compartments 114, 116, and 118 are shaped to retain a plurality of substantially circular food items 90 arranged in stacks therein.
The compartments 114, 116, 118 may be sized and shaped to accommodate various typically commercially available substantially circular cookies, crackers, or the like having a diameter from about 2.4 to about 2.6 inches and, in some examples, a diameter of about 2.5 inches. The compartments 114, 116, 118 may be all identical in size, or may be of different sizes. For example, in some embodiments, each of the compartments 114, 116, 118 may have a diameter from about 2.4 to about 2.6 inches. In one aspect, the second compartment 116 has a diameter of about 2.469 inches, and the first and third compartments 114 and 118 each have a diameter of about 2.413 inches. It will be appreciated that the tray 100 and the compartments 114, 116, and 118 are not drawn to scale, and that the compartments 114, 116, 118 of the tray 100 may be configured to have various dimensions suitable to retain various commercially available substantially circular food items 90.
With reference to
As can be seen with reference to
With reference to
In the illustrated, non-limiting embodiment, the tray 100 has an overall rectangular shape as can be seen in
The first panel 138 of the first compartment 114 and the second panel 148 of the third compartment 118 also include a plurality of interconnected stiffening ribs 156 that provide the panels 138 and 148 with a corrugated appearance, but the stiffening ribs 156 do not extend along the entire length of each of the panels 138 and 146, instead extending only along a portion of the length of each of the panels 138 and 146. As such, each of the panels 138 and 148 includes a non-corrugated portion 159 not including any stiffening ribs 156 and not having a corrugated appearance. The non-corrugated portion 159 of each of the panels 138 and 148 adds structural integrity and increased rigidity in certain directions, such as parallel to a central axis of the ribs, to the tray 100, advantageously making the tray 100 less susceptible to undesired deformation during manufacturing, packaging, transportation, sorting, or the like, as well as contributing to stability.
With reference to
As can be seen in
In some implementations, portions of another tray complementary to the tray 100 may come in contact with portions of the upwardly-facing surface 151 of the peripheral rim 150 and/or portions of the raised perimeter portion 160 and/or portions of the upwardly-facing surface 168 of the outer flange 166 when the other (i.e., second) tray is stacked on top of the illustrated tray 100. In the embodiment illustrated in
In the illustrated embodiment, the first divider 152 is interconnected with the peripheral rim 150 by two scalloped ledges 172, 174, while the second divider 154 is interconnected with the peripheral rim 150 by two scalloped ledges 176, 178. The scalloped ledges can resemble a truncated gingko leaf or a (non-mathematical) hyperbolic shape. Indeed, a portion of the scalloped ledges protrudes beyond the adjacent side walls, as shown in
A portion of each of the scalloped ledges 172, 174, 176, 178 forms an upper portion of an end portion 173, 175, 177, 179, respectively, of the dividers. As can be seen, for example, in
In the illustrated embodiment, each of the scalloped ledges 172, 174, 176, and 178 includes an inclined inwardly-facing portion 181, 183, 185, 187, respectively, as well as a substantially horizontal upwardly-facing portion 189, 191, 193, 195, respectively, as can be seen, for example, in
In the illustrated embodiment, the second side panel 140 of the first compartment 114 and the first side panel 142 of the second compartment 116 are oriented such that they diverge from each other as they extend downwardly from their respective scalloped ledges 172 and 174 and in a direction toward the bottom panels 120 and 122 of their respective compartments 114 and 116. In some embodiments, the angle between the initially diverging and substantially straight portions of the second side panel 140 of the first compartment 114 and the first side panel 142 of the second compartment 116 is about 10°. Similarly, the second side panel 144 of the second compartment 116 and the first side panel 146 of the third compartment 118 are oriented such that they diverge from each other as they extend downwardly from their respective scalloped ledges 176 and 178 and in a direction toward the bottom panels 122 and 124 of their respective compartments 116 and 118.
With reference to
The scalloped ledges 172, 174, 176, and 178 together with their respective strengthening ribs 173, 175, 177, and 179 are believed to advantageously provide the tray 100 with greater structural rigidity, thereby restricting and/or preventing undesired deformation/distortion of the sidewall portion 112 of the tray 100 and/or of the compartments 114, 116, 118 during manufacturing, packaging, transportation, or the like, thus reducing and/or eliminating the damage to the food items 90 that would have otherwise resulted from such undesired deformation or distortion of the compartments 114, 116, 118 inward towards the food items 90.
Generally speaking, and without wishing to be limited by theory, there are several structural features that are believed to contribute to the undesired buckling of conventional cookie trays. First, in some conventional cookie trays, the stiffening ribs formed in the outermost sidewall panels of the tray extend along the entire length of the sidewall panels or end walls and extend into the peripheral rim, creating a natural weakened location for the outermost sidewall panels to buckle and/or kink, leading to the inwardly-directed deformation of the food item-containing compartments. In addition, in conventional trays, the transitions between the dividers and the sidewall are so robust in terms of their height and width that they undesirably create a large footprint on the sidewalls, thereby creating natural bend/kink points around their perimeter that often lead to the inwardly directed deformation of the front and rear panels of the sidewall.
The tray 100 overcomes the inward buckling tendencies of conventional cookie trays by increasing the rigidity of the tray 100 while providing the tray 100 with an increased resistance to buckling in response to outside front, rear, and/or side compression forces that the tray 100 may experience during packaging or transportation. For instance, as discussed above, the tray 100 includes first and second side panels 138 and 148 that have stiffening ribs 156 that do not extend along the entire length of each of the panels 138 and 146, but extend only along a portion of the length of each of the panels 138 and 146, which provides each of the panels 138 and 148 with a non-corrugated portion 159 not including any stiffening ribs 156. The portion 159 of each of the panels 138 and 148 provides a solid, non-corrugated structure to the panels 138 and 148, thereby increasing the structural integrity and increased rigidity to the sidewall portion 112 of the tray 100, advantageously making the tray 100 less susceptible to undesired deformation during manufacturing, packaging, transportation, sorting, or the like. In addition, both the scalloped ledges 172, 174, 176, and 178 and their respective strengthening ribs 173, 175, 177, and 179 have a narrow footprint on the sidewall portion 112 such that they do not create natural areas susceptible to buckling or kinking unlike the conventional trays.
Without wishing to be limited by theory, the tray 100 according to the embodiments described herein are configured such that, when compressive force is applied to the tray 100 in a direction substantially perpendicular to the first and second side panels 138 and 148, the sidewall portion 112 of the tray 100 deflects in a direction away from the food items 90 (e.g., with the longest dimension of the peripheral rim 150 bowing out in a direction away from the bottom panels 120, 122, 124 and the angles between the walls of adjacent dividers increase (θ1 and θ2) as compared to when there is no compressing force, as shown in
The tray 100 can be part of a package, as shown in
Those skilled in the art will recognize that a wide variety of other modifications, alterations, and combinations can also be made with respect to the above described embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention, and that such modifications, alterations, and combinations are to be viewed as being within the ambit of the inventive concept.
This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 17/268,442, filed Feb. 12, 2021, which is a U.S. national phase application of International App. No. PCT/US2019/045848, filed Aug. 9, 2019, which claims the benefit of U.S. provisional App. No. 62/720,801, filed Aug. 21, 2018, each of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 17268442 | US | |
Child | 17590309 | US |