EP2411295A1

EP2411295A1 - Improvements in relation to packaging

Info

Publication number: EP2411295A1
Application number: EP09784552A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Petra Decker; Ivica Franic
Original assignee: Elopak Systems AG
Current assignee: Elopak Systems AG
Priority date: 2009-03-24
Filing date: 2009-03-24
Publication date: 2012-02-01
Also published as: WO2010109155A1

Abstract

A package comprises a carton and a pour spout fitment (2) comprising a pour spout (4) attached to a wall (14) of the carton and bounding a pouring mouth (10), a screw cap (6) closing the pouring mouth (10), and a turnable cutting device (8) in the spout (4) whereby a hole can be formed through a zone (26) of the wall (14) to permit pouring of a content of the carton from the pour spout (4), the cap (6) being sufficiently transparent that a consumer can conclude, without opening the cap (6), but by inspection through the cap (6) from outside the carton, whether or not the hole has been formed.

Description

IMPROVEMENTS IN RELATION TO PACKAGING

This invention relates to a pour spout fitment, a package including a pour spout, and a method of inspecting the package for evidence of tampering.

It is known to use a wide variety of tamper-evident devices for sealed containers, such as cartons and bottles, and many of these devices rely upon the breaking of bridges between parts of pour spout fitments or between such fitments and the containers. These tamper-evident devices have the real disadvantage that the bridges are sometimes difficult for a physically weak consumer to break and the theoretical disadvantage that parts of them might drop into the poured-out product and be swallowed by a consumer. They also have the disadvantage that they render plastics pour spout fitments more difficult to produce by conventional injection moulding than if the fitments were not provided with them. Moreover, the commonest tamper- evident devices incorporated in pour spout fitments are such that, after opening of the fitment and re-closing it, the fact that the bridges have been broken is difficult for a consumer to detect. This is a particular disadvantage in circumstances when persons opening the fitments are not the consumers but busy persons, such as barmen with several identical cartons of, say, a fruit juice in a cold cabinet, who do not have time to check each carton carefully to ascertain whether it is one which has already been opened and who often choose to guess by shaking each of the cartons to ascertain which seems to be the lightest and thus is the one from which juice has already been poured; otherwise the barmen could undesirably end up having opened and only partly emptied all of the cartons .

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a pour spout fitment for attachment to an outside surface of a wall of a container and comprising a pour spout bounding a pouring mouth, a cover closing said pouring mouth, and a device in said pour spout whereby a hole can be formed through a zone of said wall to permit pouring of a flowable content of said container from said pour spout, a portion of said cover or of said spout being sufficiently transparent and so situated that a consumer can conclude without opening of said cover, but by inspection through said portion from outside said container, whether or not said hole has been formed.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a package comprising: -

a container,

a pour spout attached to a wall of said container and bounding a pouring mouth, a cover closing said pouring mouth, and a device in said pour spout whereby a hole can be formed through a zone of said wall to permit pouring of a flowable content of said container from said pour spout, a portion of said cover or of said spout being sufficiently transparent and so situated that a consumer can conclude, without opening said cover, but by inspection through said portion from outside said container, whether or not said hole has been formed. According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method comprising concluding whether a hole has been formed through a wall of a sealed package at a zone beneath a closure including a pour spout, by visual inspection through material of a portion of said closure .

Owing to the present invention, it is possible, but not essential, to dispense completely with a tamper-evident device incorporating one or more breakable bridges, and instead to enable a person to conclude, by simply looking through the sufficiently transparent portion, whether the wall of the container has a hole through it at the zone in question. In one possibility, the consumer could ascertain this by being able to see at a glance through the portion an after-forming position of the hole-forming device; alternatively, if the exterior of the wall of the container is of a particular colour, for example white, if when the hole has been formed the consumer would see a contrasting colour, probably black, at the hole, then the consumer can ascertain at a glance whether the package has already been opened and subsequently re-closed. This can be particularly advantageous for, say, a barman wishing to choose the already opened and re-closed carton from identical cartons in a cold cabinet, since he does not need to shake the cartons to pick out the partially-emptied carton.

The invention is applicable to, in particular, a pour spout with a screw cap in which turning of the screw cap causes piercing of the container wall to form the through

~ O ™ hole, in which case the whole of the screw cap is advantageously made of one-and-the same material which is itself is sufficiently transparent.

However, the invention is also applicable to a pour spout with a hatch-type cover, particularly with a hingedly mounted hatch cover, in which case the whole of the hatch cover is advantageously made of the sufficiently transparent material.

The sufficiently transparent material may be high density polyethylene, although polypropylene is preferable because it can be more transparent than high density polyethylene following injection-moulding.

In order that the invention may be clearly and completely disclosed, reference will now be made, by way of example_/ to the accompanying drawings, in which :-

Figure 1 is an exploded view, partly in .axial section, of a screw-capped pour spout fitment; and

Figure 2 is a fragmentary view, partly in axial section, of the fitment welded or otherwise adhered to an external surface of a fragmentarily shown wall of a carton.

Referring to the drawings, the pour spout fitment 2 consists of a flanged pour spout 4, a screw cap 6 and an annular, hole-piercing device 8. The spout 4 has a pouring mouth 10 and has a flange 12 whereby it is attached to the outside surface of a wall 14 of a plastics-coated paperboard carton. The spout 4 is formed externally with screw-threading 16 for co-operating in a conventional manner with internal screw-threading 18 of the cap 6. Moreover, the spout 4 is formed internally with screw- threading 20 for co-operating in a conventional manner with external screw-threading 22 of the piercing device 8 which is in the form of a turnable cutter with knives 24 for cutting through the wall 14 at a zone 26 covered by the fitment 2. The cap 6 internally has pushers 28 which cooperate in a conventional manner with dogs (not shown) on the internal surface of the piercing device 8, such that, when the cap 6 is unscrewed, the co-operation between the screw-threading 20 and 22 causes the piercing device 8 to turn about the axis of the fitment 2 while its knives 24 penetrate through the wall 14. The wall 14 may be of any desired structure pierceable by the device 8, for example, may, as shown, consist of an outermost, moisture barrier, plastics layer 30 on a paperboard layer 32 itself attached by an adhesive layer 34 to an oxygen barrier, plastics layer 36 covered by an innermost, moisture barrier, plastics layer 38. The cap 6 is of relatively transparent plastics material, in particular polypropylene. Once the carton has been formed, filled and sealed, with the fitment 2 attached to the wall 14, which is intact (although it could be formed with a partial-depth cut to facilitate cutting of the through-hole by the knives 24) , someone looking through the cap 6 and thus through the interior of the pour spout 16 and thereby also through the interior of the annular piercing device 8, would see the external colour of the wall 14. When the cap 6 is opened, then a hole is formed through the wall 14, probably with the cut zone 26 being not completely cut in a circle, so as to avoid its dropping into the product. The colour seen through the hole so formed would contrast with the colour of the outside of the wall 14. Following the re-closing of the cap 6, the hole so formed remains visible from outside the container, since the cap 6 is sufficiently transparent for that purpose. The device 8 is of a colour contrasting with that seen through the hole, so as to enhance the distinguishability of the hole.

Another possibility is to have the zone to be cut and swung down of a striking colour and/or displaying a special symbol, so that, when the colour or symbol is no longer readily visible, the consumer can conclude that the carton has already been opened.

Claims

1. A pour spout fitment for attachment to an outside surface of a wall of a container and comprising a pour spout bounding a pouring mouth, a cover closing said pouring mouth, and a device in said pour spout whereby a hole can be formed through a zone of said wall to permit pouring of a flowable content of said container from said pour spout, a portion of said cover or of said spout being sufficiently transparent and so situated that a consumer can conclude without opening of said cover, but by inspection through said portion from outside said container, whether or not said hole has been formed.

2. A fitment according to claim 1, wherein said portion is formed of high density polyethylene.

3. A fitment according to claim 1, wherein said portion is formed of polypropylene.

4. A fitment according to any preceding claim, wherein said portion is of said cover and said cover is all of such sufficient transparency.

5. A fitment according any preceding claim, wherein said device is of a colour contrasting with that which would be visible through said hole from outside said container.

6. A package comprising: - a container,

a pour spout attached to a wall of said container and bounding a pouring mouth, a cover closing said pouring mouth, and a device in said pour spout whereby a hole can be formed through a zone of said wall to permit pouring of a flowable content of said container from said pour spout, a portion of said cover or of said spout being sufficiently transparent and so situated that a consumer can conclude, without opening said cover, but by inspection through said portion from outside said container, whether or not said hole has been formed.

7. A package according to claim 6, wherein said portion is formed of high density polyethylene.

8. A package according to claim 6, wherein said portion is formed of polypropylene.

9. A package according to any one of claims 6 to 8, wherein said portion is of said cover and said cover is all of such sufficient transparency.

10. A package according to any one of claims 6 to 9, wherein said device is of a colour contrasting with that which would be visible through said hole from outside said container.

11. A package according to any one of claims 6 to 9, wherein said zone is of a striking colour.

12. A package according to any one of claims 6 to 11, wherein said zone displays a special symbol.

13. A method comprising concluding whether a hole has been formed through a wall of a sealed package at a zone beneath a closure including a pour spout, by visual inspection through material of a portion of said closure .

14. A method according to claim 13, wherein said portion is of a cover of a pouring mouth of said pour spout.