The invention pertains to the art of packaging and, more particularly, to packaging refrigerated dough in a horizontal form, fill and seal (HFFS) system utilizing direct vertical product loading.
It is common to package a refrigerated dough product in a canister of a fixed volume formed from composite paperboard which is spirally wound into a cylinder, with the refrigerated dough product being further proofed in the canister. In one known system, a packer is used to cut hexagonal shaped dough pieces, such as biscuits, from a sheet of dough and direct the dough pieces into respective canisters traveling below the packer. This overall process can be used to effectively stack multiple dough pieces, such as 4-10 biscuits, in a single, substantially continuously indexed container at a high rate. However, packaging products in cardboard is actually, relatively expensive and, at least in connection with products having a small profit margin, can be cost prohibitive.
Mainly because of cost efficiencies and packaging versatility, vertical and horizontal form, fill and seal packaging systems have become increasingly popular, particularly in the food industry. While vertical form, fill and seal systems have mainly been limited for use in connection with making sealed bags, such as potato chip and other types of snack bags, horizontal form, fill and seal packaging systems are considered to be much more versatile, yet scarcely employed. By way of example, it is known to utilize a horizontal form, fill and seal (HFFS) system to create product cavities or pouches in a lower film, fill the pouches with frozen dough products and seal the products in the pouches with an upper film. Prior to fully sealing the pouches, a vacuum is typically drawn in order to reduce the available headspace of the package. Although evacuating the headspace is appropriate for frozen dough products, employing a vacuum on a refrigerated dough product would inherently destroy nucleation sites for leavener in the dough and, consequently, the overall product.
Although the above discussion exemplifies disadvantages with utilizing an HFFS system with refrigerated dough products, HFFS systems have been employed in packaging other types of food products, including a single package containing a meal of meat, cheese and crackers. At least one major problem associated with the known uses of HFFS systems in packing refrigerated products is that the products are fully formed at one process location and loaded into the package at another process location in a non-continuous fashion. Using the product example given above, each of the meat, cheese and cracker products are formed at distinct locations and often shipped separately to a packing plant. There, a receiving package is formed and directed to distinct operating stations for loading. After each product loading has been completed, the package can be sealed.
Certainly, the many advantages of utilizing HFFS systems make them enticing to employ. However, these advantages have mostly been outweighed by their disadvantages, at least with respect to particular products and loading constrictions. In particular, there has not heretofore been proposed a way to integrate a HFFS system to be used in efficiently mass producing and concurrently, vertically packaging refrigerated dough products. To this end, there is seen to still exist a need for new ways of packaging refrigerated dough products that can take advantage of the benefits of HFFS systems while avoiding known system drawbacks.
The invention is directed to a method for packaging refrigerated dough products utilizing a horizontal form, fill and seal (HFFS) system wherein the products are cut and directly stacked into flexible pouches. According to the invention, the packaging method includes creating product receiving cavities in a lower film, directly vertically stacking products in the product receiving cavities and then sealing the vertically stacked products in the cavities with an upper film to form product pouches. In one embodiment of the invention, a product fill station of the HFFS system is advantageously defined by a hexagonal or other shaped packer including a stamping unit for both cutting and directly vertically stacking the products in one operation. In another embodiment, a vertical lift and feed mechanism is employed to vertically stack the products in the receiving cavities.
Additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the drawings wherein like reference numerals refer to corresponding parts in the several views.
With initial reference to
In general, thermoforming devices such as that employed in connection with forming station 18 are widely known in the art such that details thereof need not be presented here. However, for the sake of completeness, it should at least be understood that the function of forming station 18 is to receive heated lower film 5 between lower cavity mold 21 and upper cavity mold 30, at which time the movement of lower film 5 is temporarily stopped and projection molds 32 are mated with recessed cavities 23 in order to reshape lower film 5 to include product cavities 20. To aid in this shaping operation, fluid communication lines 25 can be hooked to a vacuum source (not shown) in order to draw lower film 5 against recessed cavities 23, as well as to subsequently apply a positive pressure to aid in removing the formed product cavities 20 from lower cavity mold 21 after the thermoforming process is complete.
Once product cavities 20 are formed in lower film 5, lower film 5 advances to a loading or filling station generally indicated at 40. At this point, it should be noted that the invention is particularly concerned with employing a vertical loading system for filling product cavities 20. To this end, although filling station 40 can take various forms without departing from the invention, filling station 40 includes a vertical loading unit, such as vertical loading unit 42 including a platform 43 from which extend various loading arms 44 used to transport products, such as that indicated at 46, into the individual product cavities 20. As the vertical loading is an important part of the invention, further details thereof will be presented below after discussing other overall aspect of HFFS system 2.
After products 46 are loaded into product cavities 20, lower film 5 is advanced to a sealing station 52. In general, the invention is not concerned with the specific manner in which products 46 are sealed within product cavities 20. However, as is widely known in connection with standard HFFS systems, a second or upper film 56 is drawn from a payout reel 57. After following various guide rollers 63 to sealing station 52, the remainder of upper film 56 is directed to a take-up reel 65. At sealing station 52, upper film 56 is sealed to lower film 5 across product cavities 20 in order to create an overall product package in the form of a flexible pouch as indicated at 68.
As indicated above, filling station 40 can take various forms without departing from the invention. In a simple form, vertical loading unit 42 can be constituted by a robot unit which can be shifted into or out of the page of
Depending on various factors, such as the size of the individual products 46, the dimensions of transport cutter plate 102, the number of adjacent product strips 69 and the indexing time for first film 5 (which is basically governed by the required formation time at forming station 18), the travel speed for dough sheet 104 on transport cutter plate 102 and the operation cycle for loading unit 42 can be readily established to provide for a generally continuous production line. By way of example, a hexagonal packer designed to generate eighty products during each cycle utilizing a cutter plate having 204 openings is operated as an intermittent machine with a consistent cycle even though dough is fed to the packer unit at a constant speed. In this instance, accommodations are made for the periodic accumulation of dough between the sheeting line and the packer 100. This loading system is used with a HFFS system which is 24″ wide and has a 24″ index distance. The HFFS system has a dwell time of approximately 60% of a cycle for the thermoforming operation and requires approximately 40% of the cycle to advance the film. At thirty cycles per minute, one cycle would occur in two seconds, requiring 1.2 seconds to form pouches and 0.8 seconds to advance the film in preparation of the next cycle. In a main embodiment, the pouches are loaded during the dwell period. Certainly, maximizing the index distance will increase the output. That is, additional pouches can be filled during each stroke of the loader unit by increasing the width and/or length of the cutter bar in combination with adjusting the number of pouches presented for loading in each cycle.
Although described with reference to certain embodiments of the invention, it should be readily understood that various changes and/or modifications can be made to the invention without departing from the spirit thereof. For instance, the shape of the products, the configuration of the packaging and the number of vertically arranged products can be altered. In particular, a generally peanut-shaped dual product package having adjoining cavities can be advantageously employed with minimal product spacing, or a twin stack/single cavity packaging can be established. In addition, other alternatives could also be employed to increase production rate, such as directing a second, offset array of product pouches to the loading station. In general, the invention is only intended to be limited by the scope of the following claims.
The present invention claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/229,316 entitled “HFFS PACKAGING METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REFRIGERATED DOUGH” filed Jul. 29, 2009.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61229316 | Jul 2009 | US |