ES2211254A1 - Plastic tray for container, used to transport and display fruit and vegetables, comprises partitions forming rectangular compartments - Google Patents

Abstract

The plastic tray (2) has partitions dividing it into a number of separate rectangular compartments. The partitions lie parallel to the container's end walls, have sloping sides, preferably angled at 20 degrees to the vertical, and are preferably made with horizontal separating strips at the top. The bottom of each compartment has a series of rounded grooves.

Description

Device and separation procedure and blocking in some fruit and vegetable packaging, and packaging of conditioning.

The present invention relates to a device of separation and blocking of fruits and vegetables in packaging of fruits and vegetables, as well as packaging packaging fruits and legumes that comprise it.

The present invention also relates to a procedure of separation and blocking of fruits and legumes in some packaging arranged on inclined planes in shop windows or retail shelves.

Fruits and legumes are transported and sold packed in bulk in some packaging. Fruits and legumes are transported and sold packed in bulk in some packages that consist of containers opened by their upper face, with a bottom and solid side walls or perforated, rectangular in shape and of standard dimensions, of wood, cardboard or plastic, in particular the box, basket or tray. They are arranged in shelves or shop windows selling the markets or large surfaces in inclined planes, of so that the presentation to the client is improved and the service by the client or by the sellers. Nevertheless, this type of presentation on inclined planes presents inconvenience Fruits have a tendency to slide down and to pile up at the bottom of the packaging, which is a source of degradation of fruit quality after placement in inclined planes.

An adaptable separation device is known in some packages, consisting of a flat cardboard bottom corrugated and from which separating partitions are made inside the packaging by manual folding of the flat bottom Flexible corrugated cardboard. This device has gaps, since these partition walls are not stable and have tendency to deform and slide down as the Bottom compartments empty. Also, in the to the extent that this device is not a container, it does not present side walls and food products are found Always directly in contact with the packaging walls. East contact with the walls is the cause of a loss of quality of the fruits and vegetables and a lack of hygiene. On the other hand, the corrugated cardboard is not a satisfactory material in terms of its behavior over time. Indeed, when in contact with wet products, such as food products as fruits and legumes, their mechanical characteristics have tendency to degrade

All these gaps involve the degradation of the quality and hygiene of fruits and vegetables contained in Such packaging.

Finally, the manual folding of these funds Flexible cardboard planes have handling difficulties and A significant waste of time.

The basic problem of the invention is therefore improve the presentation and conditioning of fruits and legumes sold in packaging in shop windows or shelves sales that include inclined planes, which guarantees a better maintenance of the quality and hygiene of fruits and legumes conditioned and overcoming inconveniences and gaps of the above embodiments mentioned above.

For this, the present invention provides a device for separating and blocking fruits and vegetables in some packaging, characterized in that it consists of a rectangular tray of plastic material intended to be placed inside said packing, said bucket comprising side walls and separating partitions parallel to one of said walls lateral, such that:

- said partitions define at least two rectangular compartments inside said bucket,

- said partition walls comprise inclined flat partition walls at an angle of 10 to 45 °, preferably about 15 to 20 ° with respect to the vertical outward compartments,

- each partition between two adjacent compartments comprises two flat partition walls inclined according to opposite slopes, and are preferably separated at the top by a flat horizontal band, allowing said band to separate and thus avoid stacking some against the other fruits of the adjacent compartments that reach the support at the top of these walls adjacent separators,

- said side walls of said bucket are inclined towards the outside of said bucket, at an angle of 10 to 45 °, preferably from 15 to 20 ° with respect to the vertical,

- said separating partitions correspond to less to the greater side of said rectangular compartments, and are arranged in a direction parallel to that of the walls sides of said bucket defining the width of said bucket bucket.

This separation and blocking device according to the invention constitutes a receptacle element arranged in a manner removable and disposable in said packaging. Indeed, preferably, the device to be discarded after each use  to avoid eventual contamination that comes from use preceding.

In a particular embodiment, said separating partitions correspond at least to the greater side of said rectangular compartments.

When the packages are arranged on some inclined planes with its smaller side (or width) arranged transversely with respect to the longitudinal direction of the slope, and that the partition walls are parallel to only one of the side walls of said bucket, said partitions are advantageously arranged in a direction parallel to that of the side walls of said tray defining the width of said tray bucket.

Advantageously, the merits of said compartments have preferably curved grooves in hole. These slots have the advantage of allowing the flow of any liquids inside these cuvettes, preventing fruits and legumes are in contact with such eventual liquids Moreover, these slots confer a better stiffness at the bottom of said bucket.

The present invention also has as its object a Fruit and vegetable packaging packaging useful in particular for presentation on inclined planes, characterized in that a device according to the invention is arranged inside.

The present invention also provides a procedure of separation and blocking of fruits and legumes in some packaging arranged on inclined planes in some shop windows or shelves for sale, characterized in that a  device according to the invention in said packaging and the compartments of said device with said fruits or vegetables.

In a preferred embodiment of the method according to the invention, said packages and said devices are arranged according to the direction such that the longitudinal direction of said rectangular compartments is transverse with respect to the longitudinal direction of the pending of said inclined planes in said windows or sale shelves In this way, fruits and legumes are left supported on a wall of the compartments that corresponds to your major side, and the pressure exerted by fruits and legumes corresponds to the weight of fruits and legumes aligned along of the direction parallel to a wall corresponding to the most side small of the compartments; the pressure exerted on the supporting walls is therefore smaller than in the reverse arrangement of the compartments.

The process according to the present invention is particularly advantageous when fruits and legumes are fragile, and more particularly for grapes. Indeed, the grapes they are very sensitive fruits to stacking and crushing and They lose a lot in quality in these conditions of use. In addition, it is found that grape grains have a tendency to to consolidate their cluster under these conditions of presentation on shelves on inclined planes.

The device and the procedure according to the The present invention contributes to a better presentation of the fruits and vegetables on inclined planes, which facilitates the service by the clientele, while ensuring a better quality maintenance, in particular thanks to better aeration and less stacking. They also contribute to a better hygiene, thanks in particular to the use of a material plastic adapted to the packaging of food products, said material resisting contact with said products food without degrading and without degrading fruits and vegetables.

Other features and advantages of this invention will appear in light of the detailed description of different embodiments that follows. This description Detailed will be given with reference to some figures.

Figure 1 represents a perspective view of a device according to the invention arranged inside a packaging.

Figure 2 represents a view above a separation and blocking device according to the invention.

Figure 3 represents a sectional view according to AA of figure 2.

In Figure 1, a view is shown in perspective of a bowl 2 of separation and blocking of fruits and legumes, in particular grape, which is installed inside of a packaging 1, which can be made of cardboard, wood or in plastic material. Fruit packaging and packaging Legumes are of formats that respond to standards. For The small formats of size 40 x 30 cm or 50 x 30 cm, can be enough a few buckets with only two compartments. In counterpart, for larger formats, such as ones 40 x 60 cm format packaging, it is preferable to provide at least Three compartments In Figures 1 to 3, the packaging is of a standard format for grapes, with dimensions of 60 x 40 cm, and a height of 7 cm. The dimensions of cuvette 2 are per both slightly lower so that it is easily placed inside the packaging, while being well maintained inside the packaging once placed, in particular L = 58.5 cm, L1 = 38.5 cm and H1 = 5.5 cm.

In Figures 1 to 3, a cuvette 2 that has three compartments 3 of equal dimensions. In this embodiment, the partition walls 4_ {1}, 4_ {2} that define the different compartments 3 inside of the cuvette 2 are arranged in a direction parallel to the width of said rectangular tray and said partition walls 4_ {1}, 4_ {2} define the major lengths or major sides of said rectangular compartments 3. This arrangement is advantageous when the packaging 1 is intended to be placed on an inclined plane in a shop window or shelf, whose longitudinal direction of the slope corresponds to the direction of the packing length.

Two adjacent compartments are therefore separated by adjacent walls 4_ {1}, 4_ {2} along an opposite slope so that they are approximated by the part higher. More precisely, said adjacent partition walls they consist of two inclined planes of opposite slopes and whose upper parts are closer than the bases. In its upper part, the separating walls 4_ {1}, 4_ {2} of the adjacent compartments 3 of width L2 = 17.5 cm approximately they are joined by a flat horizontal band 8 of approximately 1 to 2 cm wide, which allows to separate and avoid so the stacking against each other of the fruits of two adjacent compartments that reach support in the part top of said partition walls 4_ {1}, 4_ {2} adjacent.

In figures 2 and 3, said partition walls 4_ {1}, 4_ {2} inclined outwards of compartments 3 and peripheral walls 5 of the cuvette tilted out of the bucket at the same angle approximately with respect to the vertical. To the extent that all the walls of the compartments 3 are constituted by said separating walls 4_ {1}, 4_ {2} and said walls peripherals 5 of the cuvette are therefore all inclined towards the outside of the compartment, they confer to the compartment a flared container shape, which facilitates placement and the removal of fruits and legumes inside the compartments 3 and also helps reduce stacking and  crushing the fruit against the partition walls 4_ {1}, 4_ {2} and walls 5 when the device according to the Invention is full of fruits.

The device consists of a sheet of sufficiently rigid plastic material, preferably of expanded polystyrene, so that said separating partitions keep their shape under the weight of these fruits and vegetables when The packages are arranged on an inclined plane. The shape flattened by bucket 2 and compartments 3 contributes also to facilitate thermoforming on a single sheet, and leaving therefore of a piece, of the set of the bucket of expanded polystyrene. This thermoforming in a mold would be more difficult with walls and partitions at right angles to the background.

The bottom 6 of the compartments, delimited by dotted lines in figure 2, shows bottom grooves 7 curved hollow that can allow channeling in case necessary of liquid stagnant in said bucket. In figure 2, the slots are arranged in a direction perpendicular to the address of said partition walls 4; the slots are by both parallel to said width of the compartments rectangular 3, which contributes to stiffening the bottom 6 of said compartments According to another embodiment, said grooves they can be parallel to the greater length of said compartments

In a variant embodiment not shown in the figures, the partition walls 4_ {1}, 4_ {2} can define a grid inside said bucket in both longitudinal and transverse directions, being some partitions separators parallel to the width of said bucket, and others being separating partitions parallel to the length of said tray. In in all cases, said compartments must be advantageously arranged, with respect to the slope, such that the amount of fruits and legumes accumulated along the direction  longitudinal of the slope and that are supported on a wall or partition is as small as possible. To do this, the length of the compartments must therefore be arranged transversely to the longitudinal direction of said slope.

Claims (8)

1. Device for separating and blocking fruits and vegetables in packaging (1), characterized in that it consists of a rectangular tray (2) consisting of a sheet of thermoformed plastic material, intended to be placed inside said packaging, said package comprising cuvette (2) in a flared manner lateral walls (5) and separating partitions (4_ {1}, 4_ {2}) parallel to one of said lateral walls (5), such that: - said partitions (4_ {1}, 4_ {2}) defined by at least two rectangular compartments (3) inside said bucket, - said partition walls comprise flat partition walls (4_ {1}, 4_ {2}) inclined in a angle of 10 to 45 °, preferably approximately 15 to 20 ° with with respect to the vertical outward of the compartments, - each partition between two adjacent compartments comprises two flat partition walls (4_ {1}, 4_ {2}) inclined along opposite slopes, and they are preferably separated at the top by a band horizontal plane (8), allowing said band to separate and thus avoid the stacking against each other of the fruits of the adjacent compartments that reach the top support of said adjacent partition walls (4_ {1}, 4_ {2}), - said side walls (5) of said bucket they are inclined towards the outside of said bucket, at an angle 10 to 45 °, preferably approximately 15 to 20 ° with with respect to the vertical, - said separating partitions (4_ {1}, 4_ {2}) correspond at least to the greater side of said compartments rectangular (3), and are arranged in a parallel direction to that of the side walls (5) of said bucket defining the width of said bucket (3). 2. Device according to claim 1, characterized in that said cuvette comprises at least three compartments (3). Device according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the bottom (6) of said compartments (3) has grooves (7), preferably curved in a hollow. Device according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it is made of a single sheet of expanded polystyrene, preferably obtained by thermoforming. 5. Packaging for packaging of fruits and vegetables, particularly useful for presentation in inclined planes, characterized in that a device according to one of claims 1 to 4 is arranged inside. 6. Procedure for separating and blocking fruits and vegetables in packages arranged on inclined planes in shop windows or shelves, characterized in that a device according to one of claims 1 to 4 is provided in said packaging (1) and filled said compartments (3) of said device with said fruits or legumes. Method according to claim 6, characterized in that said packages and said devices are arranged in a direction such that the longitudinal direction of said rectangular compartments (3) is transverse with respect to the longitudinal direction of the slope of said inclined planes in said shop windows or retail shelves. Method according to claim 6 or 7, characterized in that grapes are arranged in said device.