METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR APPLYING A CONTINUOUS STRIP TO PRODUCT PACKAGING
OF CONSUMPTION
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION In the field of consumer products, the manner in which said products are exhibited to the public at the points of sale is very important. The exhibition of the product not only constitutes a marketing aspect, in which the way to offer the product to the consumer in an attractive form must be found, but it also involves questions related to the placement of the products in the exhibitors by the distributors. , of useful space within the point of sale and to guarantee that the product remains within the reach of the consumer, at the same time that the products exhibited in optimal conditions are conserved. A wide variety of displays have been developed for consumer products, ranging from fixed shelves for the placement of products to displays that can be hung on the wall or on furniture and that include adequate means to hold the products. Of the options mentioned above, having a display that can be hung on a wall or in a pre-existing cabinet at the point of sale represents many advantages. The main advantage of this type of exhibitors is that it requires a relatively small space within the point of sale, which even in this way, is in some cases difficult due to the number of exhibitors that are already in that point of sale . However, the known hanging displays have a number of disadvantages that hinder their use or simply can not be used for a certain type of product, particularly bagged products. For example, displays are known consisting of a collapsible frame containing a series of clips attached to the frame. The products to be exhibited are held by said clamps by the delivery staff and the consumer can take the product by pulling the bag and releasing it from the clamp. The main disadvantages of this merchandiser are that the required pressure, which is exerted by the clamps, normally causes the packaging of the product to break or tear when it is removed by the consumed one, additionally, the distribution process consumes a lot of time of the dealer and that it is necessary to place, one by one, the products in the display. On the other hand, it would be very convenient to have a method and apparatus applied from the moment of packaging the product, obtaining a plurality of products ready to be displayed in a way that can be displayed at any point of sale, thus saving time in all the steps involved in the distribution of the product. Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus that can be easily adapted to a packaging machine for consumer products, with which a plurality of packaged products can be obtained, conveniently attached for display at the point of sale . It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for the packaging of consumer products by means of which a plurality of products can be obtained ready for display at the point of sale. These and other objects will be apparent from the description of the preferred embodiments described below. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Figure 1 is a diagrammatic side elevation view of a prior art consumer product packaging machine incorporating the apparatus of the present invention;
Figure 2 is a cross-sectional side view of the sealing and cutting jaws of the present invention, which are incorporated in the machine of Figure 1; Figure 3 is a side elevational view of the packaging machine of Figure 1, which incorporates a second packaging mode of the present invention; and Figure 4 is a perspective view of a plurality of packages attached to a continuous strip heat sealable by the method and apparatus of the present invention.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED MODALITY Figure 1 diagrammatically illustrates a machine 10 for packaging consumer products, particularly snacks, fried foods and the like. The machine 10 for packaging consumer products consists essentially of a roll 12 of film material, which is carried by suitable guiding means and formers (not shown) until it is below the hopper 14 in the form of a continuous tube. In normal operation, the tongs 16 close over the continuous tube of packing material and the product to be packed is fed through the hopper 14. The tongs
In addition to closing to hold the packing material and isolating the product inside the continuous tube, they have the function of shaking the product so that it sits on the bottom of the practically already formed bag. Next, the jaws 18 and 20 rise until they reach the position of the tongs 16, and in a carefully synchronized step the tongs 16 open and the jaws 18, 20 close on the continuous tube of packing material slightly below the location over which the tongs had closed 16.
As can be seen in Figure 2, when closing the jaws thermally seal the continuous tube of packaging material and further actuate the knife 44, located in the rear jaw 20, which cuts the continuous tube separating a package in the form of upper bag 38 and a package in the form of a lower bag 40. It is evident that by repeating the above-described operation as a continuous process, the jaws 18 and 20 in one passage seal the lower end of the bag 38 and in the next step seal the upper part. Of the same. In this way, bags containing the consumer product are continuously formed, which fall on the surface of a conveyor belt 28 that carries the bags to a station in which an operator places them in boxes for their subsequent distribution. The process described above constitutes the known technique for the packaging of consumer products such as snacks, fried foods and the like. Now, as can be seen in Figure 1, in order to provide a continuous thermally sealable strip to which the bags will be attached at the same time they are formed and cut, supply means 30 of a continuous thermally sealable strip are incorporated. 34, which consist of a support conveniently fixed to the front of the machine. The thermally sealable continuous strip 34 is carried through feed means 24, which advance the heat sealable strip. Said feeding means 24 consist of a series of rollers that advance the continuous strip thermally sealable in a predetermined length, which is defined by the size of the packings in the form of bags that are being produced, and is fed to the front jaw 18 through slot means 36 conveniently formed in said jaw below the cutting means 44 and 46. The feed provided to the continuous strip thermally sealable by the feeding means is controlled by control means comprising mechanical or electronic means. (not shown), by means of which said predetermined advance distance can be varied, depending on the size of the package that is being produced. In this way, as can be seen in Figure 2, when operating the jaws 18 and 20 in addition to sealing and cutting the bags, by the action of the heat applied to the jaws the upper part of a bag 40 is sealed with the continuous strip heat sealable 34. Thus, the bags are continuously connected only in their upper part to the continuous thermally sealable strip 34, as shown by the bag 42 of Figures 2 and 4. As shown in Figure 1 the bags 26 joined by the continuous thermally sealable strip 34, go down towards the surface of the conveyor belt 28 towards a station where the thermally sealable continuous strip can be cut every determined number of bags, and said bags joined by the continuous thermally sealable strip are placed in boxes for their distribution. Figure 4 shows a plurality of packages in the form of bags 26, joined by a continuous thermally sealable strip 34 in accordance with the present invention. In Figure 3 there is illustrated an alternative embodiment of the present invention in which the thermally sealable continuous strip supply means 30 is placed on the back of the machine 10 and the thermally sealable continuous strip 34 is carried to the feeding means 24 by guide means 32 conveniently placed in the upper part of the machine 10. The general operation of this second embodiment is in general terms similar to that described above, with the difference that the thermally sealable continuous strip 34 is fed through the rear jaw 20 by means of grooves formed in said jaw (not shown) equivalent to the groove means 36 of the jaw 18 shown in Figure 2 In this second embodiment, the feeding direction of the continuous thermally sealable strip 34 as well as the pulling action caused by the conveyor belt 28, cause the bags 26 joined by the strip to conti thermally sealable nua 34 tend to go forward, thus losing the alignment, causing synchronization problems in the jaws 18,20. To eliminate this problem, hopper means 48 are provided which guide the descent of the bags 26 in a vertical direction until they reach the surface of the conveyor belt 28. On the other hand, the present invention also relates to a method for attaching a plurality of packaging of consumer products such as snacks, chips and the like, to a continuous thermally sealable strip comprising the steps of: feeding a film material forming a package through clamping tongs and sealing and cutting jaws; simultaneously feeding a continuous sealable thermally sealable continuous strip by means of feeding means, through slot means provided in any of the sealing and cutting jaws; and thermally sealing, simultaneously to the sealing and cutting of the packages, the upper part of the packages to the continuous thermally sealable continuous sealable thermally strip. wherein the step of feeding a continuous thermally sealable continuous strip further comprises the step of feeding the continuous thermally sealable strip by a plurality of rollers advancing said thermally sealable continuous strip a predetermined length as a function of the size of the package, the passage of controlling the previously determined distance comprises the step of controlling said previously determined distance by mechanical or electronic means that can vary said predetermined advance distance, and the step of feeding a continuous thermally sealable tub comprises the step of introducing the continuous strip thermally sealable through of slot means running through the sealing and cutting jaw, from side to side, along its entire transverse extension, below the cutting means.