NZ215157A - Casing for ham or sausage - Google Patents

Description

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NO DRAWINGS PATENTS FORM NO. 5 NEW ZEALAND PATENTS ACT 1953 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION "CASINGS FOR HAM AND SAUSAGE" Ir WE NIHON TOKKYO KANRI COMPANY LIMITED a Japanese company of 73-2, Honkomagome, 5-Chorae 3unkyo-Ku, Tokyo, Japan, hereby declare the invention/ for which i/we pray that a patent may be granted to me/us, and the method by which it is to be performed, to be particularly described in and by the following statement:- (Mlawed by paje I A.) £ Field of the Invention - Leu - This invention is related with a casing for use for ham and sausage, into which the meat is packed, whose both edges are bonded with clips. The casing is heat-sterilized within heated water when the wrinkles of the casing disappear and the printed face is raised three-dimensionally at the same time.

Description of the Prior Art Casings for sealing directly ham or sausage, have used animal intestines in the past but such plastic films as vinylidene chloride or heat shrinkage nylon have been used in recent years. As the traditional sealing means in this type of casing, one edge of casing formed to a cylindrical shape is bonded by a clip while the meat is packed from the other edge and this edge is also bonded by a clip. This is converted into the final product through processes such as smoking, heating or sterilizing. As a reminder of the era of using animal intestines, especially in case of hams, the configuration of a casing whose external side is bonded by a string is expressed as a design on that casing, and hence a method of printing a design where a string is rounded around the external side of casing is popularly adopted. In this type of printing, however, even if the expression as a pattern is satisfactory, it is difficult to emulate the state where a string is actually bound, namely the state where the string is raised three-dimensionally, and thus the current situation is that this method still fails to attain the actual physical feeling.

Therefore, an alternative method is available, as shown in Fig. 5/ where the heat foamed ink 02 is printed onto the surface of casing 01 so as to attain the three dimensional feeling by dint of the foamed effect of this ink. However, in this case, the foamed ink appears directly onto the surface, and hence the printing effect not only is decreased by wearout, / discolouration or water absorption but also can not be utilized, with such as ham and sausage that need to be heat-sterilized, together with their casings, in the heated water.

Also, in case of animal intestines, the unique flexibility and elasticity provided by the animal intestines provides for a perfect seal when it is bonded by a clip. However, in the case of a casing made of plastic film, the seal width in a vertical direction in forming it to a casing gets somewhat thicker and thus the sealing becomes imperfect due to the resultant unevenness in flexibility.

Summary of the Invention A first objective of a preferred embodiment of this invention is to obtain a casing for use for ham and sausage, in which the physical appearance of string is achieved by expressing the string pattern three-dimensionally, and where the pattern is not subjected to any impairment by external friction, any change in colour and any collapse in shape when it is heat-sterilized within the heated water.

^ISlo 3 Furthermore, a second objective exists in providing a substantially perfect sealing by means of clips, in the casing being used for ham and sausage.

This invention, as the means of achieving the aforesaid objectives, in a preferred embodiment features a string (net) printing or a label printing using a heat foamed ink onto a pasted-up surface of a base film, or the internal surface of a plastic film that forms the outer surface when pasted up against a heat shrinkage plastic- film that forms the base, using a bonding agent.

As the base film, such heat shrinkage substances as heat shrinkage nylon and vinylidene chloride may be used.

The film forming the casing surface is selected in consideration of high transparency, heat sealing performance and better printability, which is represented by polyethylene as one possible example.

Moreover it is also possible to use vinylidene chloride film or the like for both the base film and the surface film.

As the bonding agent for pasting the base film with the film providing the outer surface, adhesives such as a urethane and being pasted up together. other agents are selected in view of the 215 15 As the heat foamed ink, such kinds of inks are selected that display the similar properties to print ink in ordinary temperature and swell from several times to tens of times when they are heated up.

The heat foamed ink in this application of ink has the properties of usual inks and can offer some optional prints with use of various kinds of printing machines, and in case of a practical example, butane can be provided in a synthetic resin (thermoplastic resin mainly made of vinylidene chloride) micro-capsule of 10 to 30 micron grain size which is mixed and dispersed into a solution within a vehicle that is further selected, out of vinyl acetate, ethylene vinyl acetate, acrylic resin, urethane, polyester, nylon and the like, depending on the quality of material being printed or coated and the required physical properties. The foaming agent of the above structure is mixed at adequate volume within a printing ink, paint and coating agent, becoming a heat foamed type ink, paint and coating agent. When employed the micro-capsule within the ink and coating agent swells 4 to 5 times in diameter and 70 to 100 times in volume when heated at a temperature level higher than 120°C. 215157 Brief Description of the Drawings Fig. 1 shows a sectional view, before being heated, of a part of the casing or packing relating to this invention.

Pig. 2 shows the sectional view of the casing in its shrunk state where the printing ink is heat-foamed.

Pig. 3 shows a perspective view of fig. 2.

Fig. 4 shows a perspective view of a ham that has been packed by a casing according to an embodiment of this invention.

Fig. 5 is a sectional view showing the conventional foaming of heat foamed ink.

Detailed Description The basic practical execution example of this invention is given in Fig. 1.

In this figure, the base film 1 consists of heat shrinkage nylon while the thermoplastic surface film 2 has a rear face (the face to be bonded) provided with printing with the use of the heat foamed ink 3.

That surface film is made of polyethylene and suitably bonded to the aforesaid base film 1 by the bonding agent 4 such as a urethane. The said surface film 2 is required to have plasticity at the foaming temperature of said heat foamed ink 3. In producing the printing with the use of heat foamed ink any suitable method may be used such as gravure print, flexible print, silk screen print, off-set print, and so forth.

Fig. 2 indicates the state of foaming of the heat foamed ink 3 and at the same time the heat-shrinking of both the base film 1 and the surface film 2. The heat foamed ink 3 builds up the irregular face 6 on both the sides as shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 by using the heat shrinkage film on both the surfaces and by heating up they are heat-formed. The irregular face 6 is utilized, as shown in Fig. 4, as the string (net) pattern 7 of a ham casing 5, or used as a label by raising the surface of the casing when other type of printing is performed thereon.

It is optional whether to select a thermoplastic or heat shrinkage film for the base film 1. This can be decided in view of the applications of the casing.

Since this invention serves to heat foam the heat foamed ink 3 that is interposed between the heat shrinkage base film 1 and the thermoplastic surface film 2, as mentioned above, it is expected to provide the effects as follows: a. Because the film being softened by the foaming temperature of heat-foamed ink is built up on the surface side of the heat-foamed ink and the heat-foamed ink is surface coated on this surface film, the heat-foamed ink is protected from wearout and discolouration. b. The heat-foamed ink face has a lusterous and nicelooking appearance. c. By employing the heat shrinkage film on both the base film and the surface film, the swelling efect of heatfoamed ink can be emphasized and the three-dimensional effect and the buffer effect can be extended. d. If the heat-foamed ink is printed on the clipped area and this area is clipped when the casing is used for ham and sausage, the clamping force in this clipped area is increased by the heat-foaming action with subsequent rise in sealing effect, eliminating the problems of pin holes.

Although this invention has been described by way of example and with reference to possible embodiments thereof it is to be understood that modifications or improvements may be made thereto without departing from the scope of the nvention as defined by the appended claims.

Claims (5)

r. o ' r; * r.j ' _ g _ v L ji l) • WHAT WE CLAIM. IS;-

1. A casing for use in enclosing ham and sausage, comprising a heat shrinkable base film having an inner surface and an outer surface, a surface film having an inner surface adhered to said outer surface of said base film, a pattern of heat foamable ink forming an inner pattern between said outer surface of said base film and said inner surface of said surface film, said inner pattern being provided on said inner surface of said surface film or said outer surface of said base film whereby heating of said casing causes shrinkage of said shrinkable base film and expansion of said heat foamable ink to form a textured pattern on said inner surface of the base film and the outer surface of the surface film corresponding to said inner pattern of foamable ink,

2. The casing of claim 1 where both the base film and the surface film have heat shrinkage properties.

3. The casing of claim 1 or claim 2 wherein the base film and the surface film are adhered together by urethane.

4. A casing substantially as herein described with reference to Figures 1 to 3 or Figures 1 to 4 of the accompanying drawings.

5. A method of forming a casing as claimed in claim 1 substantially as herein described with reference to Figures 1 to 3 or Figures 1 to 4 of the accompanying drawings. N- NIHON TOKKYO KANRJ. .COMPANY LIMITED By Their Attorneys M