FR2732298A1 - Trolley container for display of egg boxes, used esp. in supermarkets - Google Patents

Abstract

The container forms a trolley for the transportation and display of egg boxes. It comprises a chassis (10) with a frame (12) fixed to it having three closed faces (22,24) and a fourth front open face (20). The container has removable baskets for the egg boxes which are supported on guide runners (28) in the frame. The runners have stops (33) on the front face of the container. The baskets have a closed bottom two closed side walls, a rear closed wall and an upper open face. The basket front wall is closed at a height appropriate for display labels and has an opening sufficient to allow gripping the egg boxes in the basket when it is in the container.

Description

CONTAINER DISPLAY FORMING TROLLEY
The present invention relates to a display container, in particular a display container provided with wheels forming a trolley intended for the handling, transport and presentation of products, in particular boxes of eggs.

 There are many types of carts intended for handling, transporting and presenting products, all more or less adapted to the products concerned.

 In the area of self-service retailers, in particular supermarkets, studies on consumer behavior have shown that the products in the same category that are the most sold are generally those which are placed in the shelves at a gripping height. easy between 1 m and 1.80 m from the ground, regardless of the prices at which these products are offered.

 Indeed, the consumer tends to choose the products which are most easily accessible to him, preferring the products arranged at the easy gripping height described above to the products arranged in the lower or higher extreme shelving. As a result, the shelves emptied first by consumers are those who present the products at said easy gripping height.

This behavior has a damaging consequence in the case of perishable foodstuffs, in particular fresh products such as eggs or yoghurts in particular. Indeed, in order to achieve a circulation of products for sale, from the one with the shortest expiration date to the one with the most distant expiration date.

 It is therefore necessary to move one by one the products initially presented in the extreme shelving, that is to say outside the easy gripping height, towards the shelving at said height, which have been emptied.

 The extreme shelving units thus manually emptied are completed with fresher products. This produces a permutation necessary for the proper flow of products.

 In the case of fresh products sold in small packages, such as eggs, butter or yogurt, this individual handling of the packages is laborious and expensive.

 The problems mentioned above are the same for all product displays, whether shelving or fixed displays or display containers forming mobile shelving trolleys.

 There are display containers forming carriages designed to minimize these accessibility problems, which make it possible to present at a given height, advantageously easy to grip, the upper layer of the stacked products, regardless of the number of stacked layers. These display containers include a vertically movable tray on which the products are stacked in layers, said tray being secured to elastic return means arranged so as to cause this tray to rise as the products are removed, always maintaining the layer above the correct height.

 These mobile platform devices with elastic return improve the conditions of sale of the products located on the lowest layers, but are not yet completely satisfactory, in particular in the case of small retailers with low sales throughput.

 Indeed, in the field of egg sales, there are multiple sales references, in particular according to the marketing brand, the size and freshness of the eggs, and the packaging in batches of 6, 10, 12, 20 or 30 eggs for example.

 When a small retailer places his order, it is rare for him to ask for a single reference of egg cartons. On the contrary, it frequently commands a certain number of layers of a given reference, another number of layers of such other given reference, and so on. For reasons of transport costs, the manufacturers have all the layers of egg cartons ordered on the same single container, hereinafter called the mixed container.

 This arrangement in layers of different references is inconvenient, on the one hand for the manufacturer and, on the other hand, for the retailer delivered.

 For the manufacturer, these drawbacks are due to the method and the machines used to package the egg cartons. Indeed, a given reference of egg boxes is generally produced by a specific packaging unit, different from the other packaging units provided for other references. When a small retailer orders mixed containers, the container intended for them must be moved from one packaging unit to another to stack the different layers of different reference boxes ordered. This results in a loss of productivity during packaging and shipping, since each container must constantly be specially identified as to its content and destination.

 For the retailer, this stacking by layers of boxes of different references poses a problem for sale since the lower layers are not directly accessible for sale because they are covered by the boxes of the upper layers. Consequently, you must first sell the egg boxes placed on the top layers to allow access to the layers below. One solution for the retailer consists in manually undoing the stack by placing the egg boxes on shelves on which all the boxes of different references will be simultaneously accessible, but this handling is expensive since it takes staff to carry it out.

 One of the objectives of the present invention is to provide a display container which makes it possible to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks, by simplifying the handling operations in particular when loading the products as well as during the retail sale of these products.

 To this end, the subject of the invention is a display container forming a trolley intended for the handling, transport and presentation of products, in particular egg cartons, comprising a frame and a frame fixed to the frame and comprising three closed faces and a fourth face, front, open, and is characterized in that it comprises removable baskets for receiving-presenting products and in that the frame comprises means for supporting said baskets with guidance of the latter both at the introduction and 'on extraction.

 Advantageously, the baskets are substantially parallelepipedic with a closed bottom wall, two closed side walls, a closed rear wall and an open upper face, while the front wall is only closed at a height suitable for being provided with display elements. while having a sufficient opening to allow the gripping of the products arranged in the baskets while said baskets are arranged in the display container.

 According to a preferred embodiment, the support and guide means for the baskets are formed by slides, with stops on the front face of the display container.

 Means are also provided for blocking and retaining the products in the baskets, more particularly an insert cooperating with grooves made in the side walls of the baskets.

 These baskets are also provided with means for stacking the baskets one on the other, for example V or U-shaped members, fixed on the upper edges of the side walls of the baskets.

 According to an improvement, the baskets comprise a means for gripping said baskets near the rear face.

 According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, the frame and the baskets are made of folded and welded wires with meshes smaller than the smallest dimension of the products placed in the baskets.

 According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, the frame comprises means for receiving and retaining an extension.

Other characteristics and advantages of the present invention will emerge from the description which follows of a preferred embodiment, description given by way of example only, with reference to the appended drawings in which
- Figure 1 is a perspective view showing a
first embodiment of a container
display according to the invention
- Figure 2 is a detailed perspective view
representing a first embodiment of a
basket for the display container of Figure 1 ;;
- Figure 3 is a top view of the basket of the
figure 2
- Figure 4 is a perspective view illustrating a
second embodiment of a basket for the
display container of figure 1
- Figure 5 is a schematic elevational view of a
second embodiment of a container
display of the invention.

 FIG. 1 shows a display container fitted with rollers according to the present invention.

 The container comprises a chassis 10 on which a frame 12 is fixed.

 The chassis 10 is a substantially square plate whose lower face is provided with rollers 14 at the four corners, with at least two rollers on the same side which are mounted free in rotation relative to a vertical axis.

 The frame 12 is made up of uprights 16 fixed at their lower end to the four corners of the chassis 10 and secured at their upper end by four spacers 18.

 The container shown has a front face 20, two lateral faces 22, a rear face 24, and a central partition formed by uprights 26 which share the front and rear faces in two symmetrical parts.

 The uprights 16 of the lateral faces and the uprights 26 of the central partition are provided with horizontal spacers forming slides 28, so that the slides 28 of each lateral face are opposite the corresponding slides 28 of the central partition. These slides 28 constitute a support and guide means for baskets which will be described later.

 The slides 28 have, at their extremity, in line with the front face of the stops 33.

 The structure of the display container is made of folded and welded wires to form a lattice. In order not to overload Figure 1, this trellis is shown there schematically.

 The size of the mesh of the trellis is a function of the size of the products which it is intended to have in the display container.

 The uprights 16, 26 are advantageously constituted by hollow sections with their upper end open, in order to be able to cooperate with an extension forming a removable additional stage or advertising panel for example.

In FIG. 1, the extension is represented schematically by the reference 31.

 Each pair of slides 28 forms a means for supporting and guiding a basket 36, one embodiment of which is shown in FIGS. 2 and 3.

 The basket 36 shown in these figures is made of lattice of folded and welded wires. It has a bottom 38, two side walls 40 and a rear wall 42. It also has a small front wall 44, of height much less than the height of the side walls 40.

 This small front wall 44 is provided with reception means for display elements, for example the reference of the products placed in the basket or their price. In FIG. 2, these reception means are plates on which labels can be glued or clipped.

 As for the display container, the size of the mesh of the bottom wall, the mesh of the side walls and the rear wall is a function of the size of the products to be placed in the basket. The smaller the products to be placed in the basket, the tighter the mesh.

 Close to the front face 44, the side walls 40 are provided with vertical wires 46 very close to one another, in order to constitute, with an attached part 48, a means for holding the products 50 placed in the basket.

In Figure 3, only the central row of products 50 is shown.

 The insert 48 is a rectangular plate of material having a certain flexibility, such as cardboard, plastics for example. The lateral ends of this plate 48 are intended to be inserted between two vertical wires 46 of each side wall of the basket, the edges of these lateral ends coming to bear on the horizontal wires of said side walls so that the plate arcs -boute.

 The basket 36 has a transverse gripping bar 52, each end of which is fixed respectively to the upper wire 54 of each side wall 40.

This gripping bar 52 is provided near the rear wall 42.

 U or V stacking members 56 are provided on the upper edges, in this case the upper wires 54 of each side wall, in order to be able to stack the baskets 36 on top of each other.

 This basket is intended to be received in the display container described above, carried and guided by the slides 28. The slides 28 can advantageously be inclined slightly backwards in order to reinforce the maintenance of the baskets in the display container during its transport. and its different displacements.

 The container shown in FIG. 1 is designed to receive ten baskets 36 distributed in two columns of five floors, each basket being carried by a pair of slides 28.

 The mode of use of the basket display rack container of the present invention will be explained below in detail in various examples applied to the sale of egg cartons.

 In this description, the terms “upper baskets” and “upper stages” designate the baskets and stages of the display container which are at easy gripping height, and the terms “lower baskets” and “lower stages” designate the baskets and stages of the display container which are outside the easy gripping height, either higher or lower than this height. By way of example, in the container represented in FIG. 1, the lower baskets are the baskets of the two lower stages and the upper baskets are the baskets of the three upper stages.

 Also, the display container accessible to the consumer will be designated by "container in store", and by "container delivered" another display container not accessible to the public, which has been delivered either at the same time as the container in store, or after the latter. and whose baskets include boxes of eggs with a more recent packaging date than boxes of eggs from the container in store.

Example 1
When a container in a store has baskets filled with boxes of eggs of the same reference, the upper baskets will be the first emptied, since the egg boxes of these baskets are at an easy gripping height for consumers.

 In this case, either the personnel of the retailer swaps the baskets by placing the almost full lower baskets on the upper floors and the empty upper baskets on the lower floors, or, if he has a container delivered, he only performs half a permutation as explained below.

 Half-swapping consists of removing the upper baskets from the container in the store and setting them aside, permuting the lower baskets by placing them on the upper floors, placing full baskets on the lower floors of said container in the store. remove from the delivered container and, finally, place in the delivered container the empty baskets initially set aside, for a return to the supplier.

 These few steps are carried out very quickly without risk of breakage, without handling equipment, by imposing on staff charges compatible with the legalization of work, and are therefore inexpensive since the staff is immediately available for other activities.

Example 2
When a container in store presents boxes of eggs of ten different references, namely a reference determined by basket, it is frequent that certain references sell faster than others and that, consequently, certain baskets are emptied before others.

 In this case, it will suffice for the staff to remove the empty baskets from the container in the store and set them aside, to have the appropriate reference baskets from the delivered container in the storeys thus freed from the store container, and finally , put the empty baskets initially set aside in the container delivered for return.

 As in the previous example, the steps described are very quick and prevent retail staff from manually making and undoing the stacks of egg cartons, handling which is intended to always present the easy grip height boxes of eggs not having the most recent packaging date.

Example 3
In the case of retailers with very low sales throughput, for example of a number of boxes which can be contained in a few baskets which do not make it possible to complete a container, the present invention also has significant advantages, in particular by reducing delivery costs. .

 Indeed, for ten retailers of this type each ordering a few baskets, it is possible to carry out the tour with a small vehicle in which a single container is loaded, and to deliver them only the few baskets ordered. In addition, this delivery takes place extremely quickly.

 We can notice that if the number of baskets is very limited, it is always possible to stack the few baskets thanks to the U or V stacking with which the baskets are fitted.

 With the display containers of the prior art, it was not possible to transport only one container for all the small retailers delivered, unless superimposing in a single container all the references ordered and delivering said retailers in a precise order to then undo the stacking by entering the boxes one by one.

 Another advantage of the invention lies in the size of the baskets adapted to the needs of small retailers who order small quantities of boxes of eggs of different references: in each basket will be placed only boxes of eggs of the same reference .

 Thus, when the display container of the invention is delivered to the retailer, the container can be put on the shelf directly with all its boxes of eggs of different references available immediately, unlike known containers for which the boxes of reference eggs different ones are stacked in layers on top of each other, making it impossible to grab the boxes of the lower layers until the layers of the upper references are removed.

 Retailers place their orders for egg cartons before all cartons with different references are sold. With the containers of the prior art, it was common for the boxes of the missing reference (s) to be on the lower layers of the stack of the container delivered. It was then necessary to put aside the boxes of the upper layers by removing these boxes one by one, in order to have access to the boxes of the lower layers, to then put one by one the boxes of the lower layers on the shelf, before resuming the boxes set aside to put them back in the container delivered. It is easy to understand that this handling is extremely tedious.

 With the display container and its baskets according to the present invention, it is sufficient to remove the empty baskets from the shelf container, and to replace them with the baskets filled with boxes of eggs of the missing references. This handling is very fast and without constraints.

 We have seen that the display container and its baskets of the present invention is very practical for retailers.

But the invention is also very practical for the manufacturer who conditions the boxes of eggs.

 As described in the preamble to this description, the boxes of different references are obtained from different packaging units. For orders of multiple references delivered in mixed containers of the prior art, the container must be placed at the end of a determined packaging unit, a number of layers of boxes of the corresponding reference must be placed, then move this container to the end of another packaging unit to stack another determined number of layers of another reference, and so on. This handling requires binding monitoring and tracking of each container in order to avoid mixing orders from different retailers.

 On the contrary, with the present invention, it suffices to have baskets at the end of each packaging unit and to load these baskets without particular monitoring. Then, for an order from a given retailer, it only remains to place in a container the number of baskets for each reference ordered.

 Thus, the baskets can be filled independently of the orders placed, which generates efficiency and productivity gains at the manufacturer who packages the egg cartons.

 The display container shown schematically in Figure 5 is a variant of the container of Figure 1, on which the baskets 36 of the two lower floors have been replaced by a movable plate 70 vertically, integral with elastic return means 72, as described in the preamble to this description.

 FIG. 4 represents an alternative embodiment of the basket 36 of FIG. 2. The basket 60 shown is made of corrugated cardboard, with a bottom wall 62, two side walls 64, a rear wall 66 and a front wall 68.

In this embodiment, the front wall 68 replaces the retaining plate 48 of the basket 36 according to the first embodiment.

 This front wall 68 is precut according to three full-fleshed dashed nets 70a, 70b, 70c, so as to facilitate its uprooting at the point of sale of the products.

 Compared to the wire basket 36 of Figure 2, the cardboard basket 60 of Figure 4 has the advantage of being disposable after each use. It eliminates the disadvantage of cleaning to which the wire basket must regularly be subjected. Also, a cardboard basket is inexpensive and does not need to be returned, which in some cases can be an advantage.

 Similar advantages to those described above for the manufacturer or the retailer can be obtained from the wholesaler acting as intermediary between the first two.

 Of course, it appears from the foregoing description that the subject of the invention can be applied to many other products than boxes of eggs, such as, for example, sheets of butter, packets of yogurt.

 Depending on the products provided, many modifications can be made to the display container and its baskets, without however leaving the frame of the invention.

Claims (11)

 1. Display container forming a trolley intended for the handling, transport and presentation of products, in particular egg boxes (50), comprising a frame (10) and a frame (12) fixed to the frame and comprising three closed faces ( 22, 24) and a fourth face, front (20), open, characterized in that it comprises removable baskets (36) for receiving and presenting products (50) and in that the frame (12) comprises means for supporting said baskets with guidance of the latter both at the introduction and at the extraction.  2. display container according to claim 1, characterized in that the baskets (36) are substantially parallelepipedic with a bottom wall (38) closed, two side walls (40) closed, a rear wall (42) closed and an upper face open, while the front wall is only closed at a height suitable for being provided with display elements while having a sufficient opening to allow the gripping of the products arranged in the baskets while said baskets (36) are arranged in the display container.  3. Display container according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the support and guide means for the baskets are formed by slides (28).  4. display container according to claim 3, characterized in that the slides (28) have stops (33) on the front face of the display container.  5. Display container according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the baskets (36) comprise means for blocking and holding the products in the baskets.  6. display container according to claim 5, characterized in that the means for blocking and holding the products (50) are formed by an insert (48) cooperating with grooves made in the side walls of the baskets.  7. Display container according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the baskets (36) are provided with means for stacking the baskets on top of each other.  8. Display container according to claim 7, characterized in that the stacking means are formed by V or U-shaped members (56) fixed on the upper edges of the side walls (40) of the baskets (36).  9. display container according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the baskets (36) comprise a gripping means (52) of said baskets near the rear face.  10. Display container according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the frame (12) and the baskets (36) are made of folded and welded wires with meshes smaller than the smallest dimension of the products placed in the baskets.  11. A display container according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the frame (12) comprises means for receiving and retaining an extension (31).