Packages containing a food product and methods of opening

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10407229-B2
Application number	US-201515517023-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 7, 2015
Priority date	Oct 9, 2014
Publication date	Sep 10, 2019
Grant date	Sep 10, 2019

Abstract

A package (10) containing a food product (12) is provided where the package is configured to facilitate opening by using the food product to initiate opening of the package. The package includes an outer wrapper (14) with a line of weakness (34) that is generally aligned with or above an upper profile of the food product such that when the wrapper is pulled against the food product one or more stress concentrations is created along the line of weakness. The stress concentrations facilitate initiation of tearing or rupturing along the line of weakness (34) such that a portion of the package can be completely or at least partially removed to expose at least a portion of the food product (12).

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A package containing a food product having an upper end with an edge profile, the edge profile including a pair of corners, the package comprising a flexible wrapper enclosing the food product between sealed top and bottom ends and front and rear sides, the wrapper having a line of weakness extending substantially about the front and rear sides, the line of weakness being generally aligned with the edge profile of the upper end of the food product, the line of weakness also including at least a pair of stress concentration discontinuities positioned on the front side of the wrapper and generally aligned with the pair of corners of the edge profile of the upper end of the food product, such that, in use, the top end of the package can be pulled away from the front side of the wrapper, and the pair of corners of the edge profile of the food product facilitate initiation of tearing along the line of weakness at the stress concentration discontinuities generally aligned with the pair of corners of the edge profile of the upper end of the food product to open the package and expose the upper end of the food product.

2. The package of claim 1 , wherein the food product comprises a food stuff in combination with a U-board.

3. The package of claim 1 , wherein the food product comprises a food stuff in combination with a sleeve.

4. The package of claim 1 , wherein the line of weakness includes a segment with a repeating wave pattern.

5. The package of claim 4 , wherein the wave pattern includes crests with larger radii than troughs.

6. The package of claim 5 , wherein the crests have radii that are between about 2.5 and about 3 times the radii of the troughs.

7. The package of claim 6 , wherein adjacent crests and troughs are connected by substantially linear segments.

8. The package of claim 4 , wherein the rear side of the wrapper includes a fin seal and the line of weakness includes a linear segment adjacent to one or both sides of the fin seal.

9. The package of claim 1 , wherein the line of weakness includes a linear segment extending between the pair of stress concentration discontinuities and the line of weakness includes a pair of inclined linear segments, each of the inclined linear segments extending from an adjacent one of the pair of stress concentration discontinuities and being inclined toward the bottom end of the package.

10. The package of claim 9 , wherein the rear side of the wrapper includes a fin seal and the line of weakness includes a linear segment adjacent to one or both sides of the fin seal and the line of weakness includes a segment positioned on the fin seal.

11. The package of claim 10 , wherein each of the pair of inclined linear segments extends into the rear side of the wrapper.

12. The package of claim 1 , wherein the line of weakness comprises a repeating generally roulette pattern.

13. A method of opening the package of claim 1 , the method comprising:
pulling the top end of the package away from the front side or bottom end of the wrapper;
creating a stress concentration along a portion of the line of weakness using the edge profile of the upper end of the food product and initiating tearing along the line of weakness; and
at least partially removing the top end of the package relative to a remainder of the package on an opposite side of the line of weakness to expose the top portion of the food product.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the step of creating a stress concentration includes using the food product to contact at or near the line of weakness during the step of pulling.

15. The method of claim 13 , further comprising creating dominant initiating force vectors generally perpendicular to the line of weakness to initiate rupturing and dominant propagating force vectors generally parallel to the line of weakness to propagate rupturing along the line of weakness, wherein the dominant initiating force vectors are at an angle of less than 90 degrees relative to the dominant propagating force vectors.

16. The method of claim 13 , further comprising completely removing the top end of the package.

17. The method of claim 13 , wherein the food product comprises a food stuff in combination with a U-board or a sleeve.

Assignees

• Intercontinental Great Brands Llc

Inventors

• Hall Isabel
• Burns Justin
• Kansburg Mark
• Sosnowski Robert

Classifications

• B65D75/5827 Primary

  Tear-lines provided in a wall portion (B65D75/5805, B65D75/5816 take precedence) · CPC title

• B65D75/58

  Opening or contents-removing devices added or incorporated during package manufacture {(B65D75/36, B65D85/1027 take precedence)} · CPC title

• B65D75/585

  the tear-lines being broken by deformation or bending · CPC title