Plastic article or earthenware shaping or treating: apparatus – Means applying electrical or wave energy directly to work – Sonic or supersonic wave energy
Reexamination Certificate
1999-01-19
2001-05-15
Yeung, George C. (Department: 1761)
Plastic article or earthenware shaping or treating: apparatus
Means applying electrical or wave energy directly to work
Sonic or supersonic wave energy
C083S956000, C099S451000, C099SDIG014, C425S296000, C425S298000, C425S36400B
Reexamination Certificate
active
06231330
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
This application is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No. 08/701,394, filed Aug. 22, 1996. The present invention relates generally to the manufacture of food products. In one preferred form, the invention relates to methods and apparatus for cutting individual confectionery products from a slab or strip of product material into a product with a particular silhouette. In another form, the invention relates to methods and apparatus for both cutting and forming individual confectionery products from strips or ropes. Still further, the process can be used for simply forming products from pre-cut segments or other blanks of confectionery material, including imparting a relatively precise texture, finish or detail to such products. The products may, but need not, be subsequently enrobed in chocolate or another coating. In still other embodiments, the confectionery material may comprise grains of a puffed cereal. In some instances, a matrix of plasticizable material holds the grains together and the confectionery material may also include, in addition to the puffed cereal, candied fruit bits, dry fruits, nuts, or the like. In some cases, the puffed cereal may be held together by surface contact between adjacent grains instead of being held by the matrix.
The methods and apparatus are adapted to create individual confections which have the same taste, consistency and eating characteristics as those of the supply stock, i.e., they are “true analogs” of the supply stock. These methods and apparatus advantageously involve the utilization of ultrasonic energy.
The simplest form of apparatus involves cutting shapes from a slab or suitably wide strip of material on a flat surface to create products having a given silhouette but opposed flat sides. More complex forms of the apparatus use one or more forming tools, each of which includes a cavity having interior surfaces which will impart a desired shape and surface detail or texture to the finished product. Where advantage is taken of a number of features of the invention, a continuous extruded strip or “rope” of confectionery material is continuously advanced and then intermittently engaged by a cutting and forming tool whose cutting edges and interior surfaces vibrate ultrasonically at a desired amplitude. As used herein, “tool” simply means the portion of an ultrasonically energized apparatus that cuts or imprints a shape to the product.
This enables a finished product of a desired shape and surface texture to be accurately formed by the tool and then released from the tool without having any residue from the product adhere to the interior of the tool, and without affecting the sensory characteristics of the product. The apparatus and methods can be used to create products which are the true analogs of other products made from the same ingredients but shaped or sized differently.
Where the cutting and forming tools are formed and sized appropriately, and moved in a desired sequence, and where the cross-section of the confectionery stock is controlled properly, the process can achieve so-called “flashless molding” of product and also virtually or completely eliminate scrap or the like by forming the entire strip into individual products, without leaving a web or other residue from which the individual pieces were formed. In the case of puffed cereal products, this may be referred to as “flashless formation” in that little or no scrap is created by the forming operations. Forming of puffed cereals is done by rearranging the shape or contours of the product, but without compressing the confectionery stock. This avoids any change in eating characteristics which might result from compressing or collapsing the cereal grains.
Many commercially produced confectionery products, such as, for example, candy bars, are formed by providing a slab which is then slit into multiple strips or what are sometimes termed “ropes.” These strips or ropes are cut into individual lengths and enrobed with a continuous coating, such as, for example, chocolate. Such cutting steps can be carried out at high speed but these steps do not customarily involve forming the product into any shape except that of simple geometric figures, usually a parallel piped or rectangular bar.
Although it is known to be possible to form unusual shapes and to impart a great variety of surface finishes or textures to candy products, this is not able to be done with most candy products on a rapid, continuous basis. This is because such shapes are normally created by molding, which involves melting the candy product and allowing it to re-solidify.
In the candy business, a great deal of research and effort has been undertaken in an attempt to create products which have taste, consistency and eating characteristics of a particularly desired kind. Thus, candy bar centers are commonly made as layered products and include a variety of materials each having its own characteristic taste. These ingredients include nuts of various kinds, fruit inclusions, coconut, peanut butter, nougat, caramel, most or all of which are layered and then enrobed in dark or light chocolate, or the like. It has been found through research that the mere presence of the same or similar ingredients in two different products is not enough to ensure that they will have the same taste, consistency and eating characteristics.
Thus, if the ingredients in one product are arranged in distinct layers, and in other products the same ingredients are simply intermixed, consumers will very often strongly prefer one product and not the other, in spite of the virtual identity of their ingredients on an overall basis. Many manufacturers have been unable to offer truly analogous products in shapes which differ significantly from those in which the products are customarily made. Accordingly, there has been a desire in the industry to be able to provide different versions or true analogs of particular, commercially popular candy bars in shapes different from their usual prior shapes. By “true analogs” as used herein is meant a product which does in fact have the same formulation, taste, consistency and eating characteristics as an original or reference product.
Assuming that a product itself could be made into two or more analog forms, each having significantly different shapes, another question is whether the equipment used to make such analog products could be readily incorporated into existing production lines.
Consequently, the operational flexibility that could be achieved by simply inserting the apparatus necessary to make an analog product into a production line that need not otherwise be modified would be a significant advantage in the industry.
While it is known that three dimensional products or those with complex detail or surface texture can be formed from continuous slabs of material as described above without encountering the above-referenced difficulties to an extent considered significant, these known manufacturing methods have several of their own drawbacks. Such methods often termed “flex molding,” for example, are expensive and complex.
Flex molding is so-named because the molds which actually form the product are made from a flexible material, such as rubber. Consequently, it is possible to impart a somewhat complex decorative or like shape to the product and to remove a product, even one including undercuts or complex surface shapes from the mold as long as the mold sidewalls are flexible enough to be removed from the product without damaging it. However, there are a number of drawbacks to this method. First, it involves fluent, plasticized, or even liquid state products, and such liquid state products cannot by their nature be true analog products. The time required to allow products to solidify sufficiently to allow their removal is a process requirement that militates strongly against high production rates.
The size and complexity of flex molding equipment makes it expensive, causes it to occupy a great deal of space and makes it difficult to integrate into existing proce
Mars Incorporated
McAndrews Held & Malloy Ltd.
Yeung George C.
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