Patent Application
20080020100
Referring to
Being entirely or substantially composed of fruit material, the snack product 10 has a sticky, highly viscous consistency. The snack product 10 is also highly elastic. The snack product 10 can be formed into a shape comprising an undulating or sinusoidal elongated body 12 having a five point star-shaped cross-section 14. This shape is particularly useful to reduce the surface area of the product 10 that would contact the inside surfaces of a metallised mutli-layer polymer film wrapper 16 (see
By reducing the product's contacting surface area, the tendency for the snack product 10 to stick to the wrapper 16 (“wrapper sticking tendency”) is reduced. “Stickiness” as referred to in this description refers to a characteristic found in materials that are essentially high viscosity liquids that adhere or stick to a surface. Such materials exhibit the characteristics of liquids, and will “wet” a surface to which they are pressed. Materials that have good adhesion are able to readily flow out on to the substrate surface. The degree of surface contact area, or freeness of the flow often determines the intensity of the adhesion. As only the five edges of the star-shaped cross section 14 contact the wrapper surface 16, the degree to which the food product 10 can flow onto, or make contact with, the wrapper surface 16 is reduced. The exposure to the wrapper surface is further reduced by the sinusoidal body shape, as the peaks and valleys of the sinusoid reduce the contact area between the product and the wrapper surface 16.
The physical characteristics (including stickiness, elasticity, and viscosity) of the snack product 10 are substantially the same as the “Fruit To Go” fruit snack manufactured and sold by Sun-Rype Products Ltd. While the shape of the snack product 10 is particularly suited to reduce the wrapper sticking tendency of a product having a stickiness equal to that of the Fruit to Go product, the shape can also be useful to reduce the wrapper sticking tendency of food products having differing degrees of stickiness. For example, this shape is expected to be particularly useful for products that are stickier than liquorice and gummy candy and less sticky than taffy or chewed gum.
While the snack product shape is particularly suitable for reducing the wrapper sticking tendency of product made entirely or substantially of fruit material, it is expected that the present invention would also be beneficial to sticky snack product having a lesser fruit content. Such snack product may still be sufficiently sticky that a sinusoidal body and/or crenate cross-section would be beneficial.
Referring now to
Extruded snack product 10 is deposited onto a conveyor belt 24, which conveys the continuous snack product 10 through a drying process (not shown) to dry the snack product 10 into its final consumable form. After drying, the snack product is conveyed to a cutter (not shown) that cuts the snack product 10 into portions. The conveyor belt 24 is operated at a slower speed than the extrusion rate to create the sinusoidal shape of the body 12. The extrusion rate and the conveyor belt 24 can be separately varied to separately vary the amplitude and frequency of the sinusoid. The extrusion rate can be varied, for example, by varying the pressure applied to the snack product 10 through the extrusion nozzle 22.
In this embodiment, the snack food product 10 has a desired length of between 140 mm and 160 mm, a desired height of 24-26 mm, and a minimum sinusoidal frequency that makes the product 10 suitable for wrapping. However, a snack food product 10 having different dimensions, sinusoidal frequency and cross-sectional shape can be manufactured within the scope of this invention.
After the snack product 10 is cut into discrete portions, the portions are conveyed to a wrapping assembly (not shown) which wrap the snack product 10 into the wrapper 16.
Such wrapping assembly may be partially or fully automated. A number of different wrapping assemblies known in the art may be used to wrap the snack product 10 and thus are not described here.
Although a metallised multi-layer polymer film wrapper 16 is particularly desirable because of its low adhesiveness, other wrapping material having similar adhesive properties can be substituted within the scope of the invention. For example, the wrapper may be any multi layer polymer, metallised polymer, fiber, or flexible multi layer, co-extruded, or laminated material.
Another advantage provided by the snack product shape is that the snack product 10 does not generally roll when being conveyed to the wrapping assembly, thereby making the snack product easier to wrap.
Although extrusion is a particularly suitable method of manufacturing the snack product 10, other methods can be employed to make the snack product 10. For example, the snack product 10 can be created by injection molding, wherein the snack product 10 has a sufficiently low viscosity to be discharged from an injection nozzle (not shown) into a star-shaped sinusoidal mold. As another example, a cylindrical snack product 10 can be shaped into a sinusoidally elongated form and ridges can be cut around the perimeter of the body to form the crenate cross-sectional shape.
While the snack product 10 preferably has both a sinusoidal elongated body and a crenate cross-sectional shape to provide the maximum benefit, the snack product 10 can still enjoy some degree of reduced wrapper stickiness when the snack product 10 only has a sinusoidal body (no crenate cross section) as shown in
According to an alternative embodiment, the snack product 10 can have a different crenate cross section other than a five pointed star shape. For example and as shown in
According to yet another alternative embodiment, the snack product 10 has a twisted or braided elongate body shape (not shown) instead of a sinusoidal body shape. Such twisted and braided body shapes also serve to reduce the surface area of the product which would contact the wrapper or other surface.
While specific embodiments of the invention have been described and illustrated such embodiments should be considered illustrative of the invention only and not as limiting the invention as construed in accordance with the accompanying claims.
