Fluent material handling – with receiver or receiver coacting mea – Plural materials – material supplies or charges in a receiver – Separate stations for a single receiver
Reexamination Certificate
2002-11-05
2004-06-01
Jacyna, J. Casimer (Department: 3751)
Fluent material handling, with receiver or receiver coacting mea
Plural materials, material supplies or charges in a receiver
Separate stations for a single receiver
C141S009000, C141S011000, C141S082000, C141S104000, C222S144500, C222S146200, C053S127000, C053S474000, C053S240000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06742552
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to a method and system for beverage manufacturing and in particular to hot fill beverage manufacturing. More specifically, the present invention is in a field wherein beverages are prepared having a variety of different flavors and/or other additives. The invention is more particularly directed to a method for manufacturing a beverage wherein a selected flavor is added into containers, either before, during or after the containers are hot filled with a common base.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Many beverages are offered in a variety of flavors. In many such instances, a base beverage formula is varied by having variations in flavor, color or possible other additives being made to the base formula so as to achieve the multiple flavor array of beverages. As explained infra, with all such beverages, how and when these flavors and additives are added to the base formula is related to a number of different criteria and conditions.
With any such beverages which are intended for wide distribution, shelf stability and/or bacterial control are important considerations for these products, especially those which need not be stored or displayed under refrigeration. Products of this type can fall into two broad categories. The first category are beverages which are filled into containers when the beverages are at elevated temperatures. Often these are referred to as hot filled beverages. The other category are beverages which are not filled hot but instead include a preservative component or composition. Thermal processing of beverages is considered advantageous as it stabilizes a formula microbiologically, while maintaining most of the desired sensory qualities. In contrast, preservatives formulations often have negative sensory attributes. The present invention is particularly directed to the thermally processed beverages.
Hot filling is designed for packaging of liquids which must be placed in the container while hot to provide for adequate extended shelf life in accordance with well-known principles. Usually this involves the use of heat to pasteurize or commercially sterilize the product. Typically, the heat effectively commercially sterilizes the beverage immediately prior to it being placed in the container. While the beverage is still hot, the container is filled with the hot, sterilized beverage. This also has the effect of commercially sterilizing the container. After the usual hot filling events, the container then is capped. Currently, there are two widely used methods and systems typically used for producing hot filled beverages.
One of these methods and systems is shown in FIG.
3
. As shown in
FIG. 3
, a complete beverage
110
is prepared with all the ingredients for the beverage. By this stage, a syrup and/or total additive package is added to a liquid, or liquids, such as for example water, in order to fully make up the beverage. For example, in an isotonic sports beverage, an additive package, that includes the sugars or carbohydrates, such as glucose, fructose and sucrose, electrolytes, flavor and color in the composition, is added to water and stirred or blended together. Other ingredients, such as for example, citric acid, would also be included, if desired in the final product. The composition then is sent to be thermally processed by suitable heating equipment. During such thermal processing, the temperature of the beverage is elevated to approximately 168° F.-200° F. (75.5° C. to 93.33° C.), preferably 170° F.-190° F. (76.67° C. to 87.77° C.), approximately for 3 seconds to 1 minute. Heat exchangers can be used to heat and hold the beverage at a certain temperature. The thermally processed hot beverage then is sent to a filler
114
such as a rotary filler generally known in the art which fills the container
116
with the hot beverage. Other types of fillers, such as for example linear fillers, volumetric fillers, pressure or gravity fillers could also be used. The hot filled container then travels down the assembly line, such as a conveyer mechanism, where eventually a cap is placed on the container by a capper
118
. Labeling and/or packaging typically follows.
In another method and system (not shown), is a continuous process. In this process, the beverage will flow through a main pipe. Streams are connected to the main pipe for adding ingredients to the mixture, e.g. a sugar stream, a flavor stream, etc. The ingredients are combined in the pipe. The complete formula is combined together prior to being thermally processed. Thereafter, the method and system is the same as the first method described above. Hence, in order to make a flavor change, the pipe, thermal processing unit and hot filler all need to be cleaned before a new flavored beverage can be produced.
Both of these methods and systems have a number of drawbacks. In particular, because the complete beverage travels through the thermal processing and the hot fill equipment in such prior art approaches, all of this equipment has to be shut down and cleaned whenever there is a flavor change. Further, only one flavor can be produced at a time. For example, if a lemon flavored drink is being made and an orange flavored drink is scheduled to be made thereafter, the line needs to be shut down to clean all of the lemon flavor from the product mixing equipment, thermal processing equipment and hot fill equipment before the orange flavored drink can be produced. Otherwise, the orange flavored drink will not taste right and/or will not give a consistent product over the run for this beverage. This results in significant down time of the production line. For example, a typical line could have 3 or 4 or more flavor changes a day, with each flavor change having a typical down time of 20-40 minutes. Hence, somewhere between 1-2.5 hours or more of a typical production shift are wasted down time.
Furthermore, because the beverage with flavor therein is thermally processed in typical existing flavored beverage production, some of the flavor in the beverage is lost, damaged or otherwise modified during heating. Flavor loss also can occur in the bottle handling stage between the filling of the beverage container and the capping of the container. This occurs as the bottles travel along a conveyer mechanism which, in the usual high-speed bottling line, creates a centrifugal force in the bottle and causes spillage, particularly of the flavored complete formulation. As a result, the flavor in the beverage is not as strong as desired due to flavor loss prior to capping.
Furthermore, most flavors degrade within 10-15 minutes. Therefore, usual good manufacturing practices place a 10 to 15 minute limit on recirculation of beverages which are flavored. This can result in requiring a new batch to be prepared prematurely and due solely to a concern for flavor degradation.
Multi-stage processing has been used in the milk industry to produce various types of milk. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,687,779 (Andersson et al.) discloses a fill system for filling a container with a primary product, such as skim milk, and a secondary product, such as cream, to produce milk products having a selected one of several milkfat concentrations. U.S. Pat. No. 6,247,507 (Sochnlen et al.) discloses a system for milk production wherein raw milk is subjected to a heat treatment (pasteurization) and then high fat and skim milk are separated from the raw milk. The skim milk and high fat are then combined in the desired proportions. The Sochnlen et al. patent states that the invention relates to beverage processing which involves milk, juices, fruit drinks and chocolate milk. Such references, however, are not directed to hot fill applications, to products having preservative components, or combinations thereof, nor are such references concerned with beverages having microbiological stability or shelf stability or to storage/display without refrigeration.
The present invention is directed to a method and system for overcoming these drawbacks in the context of an arrangement which produces multiple produ
Cook Alex McFarron Manzo Cummings & Mehler, Ltd.
Jacyna J. Casimer
Stokely-Van-Camp, Inc.
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