Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Processes – Packaging or treatment of packaged product
Patent
1994-06-07
1995-11-14
Weinstein, Steven
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Processes
Packaging or treatment of packaged product
426 80, 53413, 53449, 53451, 531342, 53546, 53548, B65B 2904
Patent
active
054664748
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates generally to infusion packages such as tea and coffee bags and similar bags containing herbal or other infusions. Specifically the invention relates to a method and apparatus for manufacturing infusion packages having a cover attached thereto, comprising joined leaves extending over opposed surfaces of the package.
A covered infusion package is disclosed in GB-A-2167380. That package has a cover formed by two leaves joined at a fold line, the package being secured to one of the leaves by heat sealing below the fold line. The leaves extend beyond the edges of the package around its complete periphery. In use the package is suspended over the edge of a cup by folding back the leaves which are then placed outside the cup. Once the infusion is complete, the package is removed from the cup by the leaves which are then folded over the package to allow the residue to be squeezed from the package, if desired, and also to allow a user conveniently to dispose of the package.
WO-90/00497 disclose machines for manufacturing such packages, in which individual packages are heat sealed to a web of cover material which at the same time is cut to the correct length for forming individual covered packages. The machine disclosed is a single lane machine, i.e. it produces only a single line of packages. In practice to increase production rates, it is desirable to produce several lines of packages at once in a so-called multi-lane machine. Indeed WO 90/00497 does mention this possibility. In a known multi-lane machine, developed from that shown in WO 90/00497, an intermittently moving two-ply web of successive rows of infusion packages is cut longitudinally and transversely by a blade and anvil arrangement to produce a row of packages severed from the end of the web. The packages, which have no transverse spacing between them, are then lifted together by vacuum means onto a number of conveyors which diverge from one another so as transversely to space the packages from one another. At the end of the respective conveyors, the packages are pulled by flighted conveyors into respective trays which introduce the package to respective parallel welding stations where they are heat sealed onto respective cover members, as shown in the specification. Due to the transverse spacing between the packages, they may be attached to the respective covers so that they lie wholly inside the periphery of the cover. However, in such an arrangement it has been found that due to irregularities in conveyor speeds, for example, the packages on the diverging conveyors may lose registry with one another and become skewed relative to each other, which means that they may not be successfully introduced to their respective welding stations, and thus cause a blockage in the machine which must then be stopped to clear the blockage.
The present invention seeks to overcome the above problems, and provides, from a first aspect, a method of manufacturing infusion packages provided with a cover which projects laterally beyond the package and has a pair of joined leaves, comprising forming in a travelling two-ply porous web, successive rows of infusion containing pockets extending transversely to the direction of travel of the web and spaced apart by transversely extending sealed regions of the web, removing a continuous strip of web material from the longitudinal sealed region extending between respective pockets of said rows to form a plurality of parallel transversely spaced travelling strips of infusion pockets, cutting said strips along the transversely extending sealed regions to form the pockets into individual infusion packages, and attaching a cover to said packages.
From a second aspect the invention provides apparatus for manufacturing infusion packages each having a cover which projects laterally beyond the package and has a pair of joined leaves, comprising means for forming in a travelling two-ply web successive rows of infusion containing pockets extending transversely to the direction of travel of the web and spaced ap
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A.G. (Patents) Limited (British company)
Baxley Charles E.
Cano Milton I.
Weinstein Steven
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