Prior art Various kinds of food products comprising multiple components are known in the art. Such products are usually packed in mixed form and should be boiled with a certain amount of added water or milk to get them ready for serving. Unfortunately, such products do not have a quality comparable to dishes prepared by traditional methods. This applies mainly for the case when a pasta is prepared by boiling it with a prescribed amount of liquid to be absorbed by the pasta i. e. the cooked pasta is not sieved or separated from the water. The reason for this compromise in quality is thought to be the starch released from the pasta into the boiling water. In traditional methods this starch is usually removed by sieving.

Traditional methods are ponderous, first of all for the reason that the ingredients should be separately bought and handled to get them ready for cooking. This drawback is partly removed by putting semi-prepared ingredients.

Disclosure of the invention The aim of the invention is to allow simple and reliable preparation of dishes of a quality comparable to dishes prepared by traditional methods.

It is a further aim of the invention to facilitate trading and using semi-finished food products or ingredients of a food by providing a dispenser for storing and dispensing well metered doses of a food product of multiple components, wherein metering of said doses is sufficiently exact as inherent to achieve a good and reliable quality.

A further aim of the invention is to provide wider flexibility to serve several portions of pasta cooked in a single batch, wherein each portion can comprise different added components or ingredients or have a different seasoning or flavour.

The dispenser should be structured to allow various components to be traded as a set or individually or even as subsets each comprising one or two different components.

The aim set is achieved by the invention as defined in main claim 1. Advantageous variants of the dispenser are defined in the claims depending on claim 1.

Description of the drawings Figure 1 shows the arrangement of the dispenser according to the invention by an exploded view.

Figure 2 shows a detail of a section of the dispenser according to Figure 1 illustrating the j interconnection of a box representing the main element of the dispenser with a lid provided with a control element for opening and closing an opening formed in the lid.

Figure 3 shows a half section of a cup that can be snapped onto one end of the dispenser structured according to Figure 2.

Detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention 10 Figure 1 symbolically shows the arrangement of the dispenser according to the invention by an exploded view. The dispenser comprises a box 100 having a first end 110 and a second closed end 120 and a cylindrical mantle 130. The box 100 can be made for example from a transparent material or other material accepted in the food industry and is adapted for receiving a first component of a food product not indicated in the drawing. In this particular l5 embodiment the first end 110 of the box 100 is provided with a lid 140 and formed with an aperture 142 and a sprinkler facility 144 both closed by an appropriate sealing means such as a patch of a foil or paper having pressure sensitive adhesive on its peripheral area and allowing inspection of the intact state of the box 100. Another way for realising an aperture 142 is to prepare a tearing line in the lid (140) defining an area similarly to lids of beverage 20 cans. This area bordered by a tearing line can be provided with a handle facilitating removal of this part of the lid 140. After removal the user of the dispenser can provide the aperture.

Either this or other kind of seal prevents falling out of and access to the contents of the box 100 before the start of its use. After the removal of this sealing means both the apertures 142 and sprinkler facility 144 can be closed by a control element 300 shaped as a disc having a 25 generally U or V-form recess 302. The disc may have at least one protrusion for facilitating rotation of the control element to open or close the aperture 142 or sprinkler facility 144, respectively. The control element 300 is attached for rotation to the first end 110 of the box 100 by appropriate means discussed later. To the first end 110 of the box 100 a first cap 200 is attached having a first end 210, which can be removably fixed to the first end 110 of the 30 box 100. The cap 200 has a second end 220, which is closed.

To the second end 120 of the box 100 a second cap 400 can be attached having an open first end 410 and a closed second end 420. Both caps 200 and 400 have a cylindrical mantle 230 and 430 having approximately the same diameter as the mantle 130 of the box. This second cap 400 can be removably fixed to the second end 120 of the box 100. The first and second caps 200 and 400 may be interchangeably formed or even both caps 200 and 400 may have a form, which allow attachment of further caps. Thereby for example both caps 200 and 400 can be attached to one of the ends 110 and 120 of the box 100. Inside the box 100 a container 160 can be arranged communicating with the sprinkler facility 144 formed for 5 example as a perforation comprising a plurality of small holes. This container 160 may comprise a granular product e. g. a spice such as a seasoning mixture.

The first end 1 1 0 of box 100 can be fully open and can be closed by a simple elastic lid 140 having an annular rim engaging with an annular bulge 150 on the edge of the mantle ISO.

The lid 140 can be shaped to be beaded over the edge of the mantle 130 and have an internal o annular bulge 152 defining a shallow annular grove 148 which is adapted to receive control element 300 for rotation. It is also envisaged that said control element 300 is pivotally attached by a pin (not shown in the drawing) to the lid 140 to control the free area of the aperture 142 or sprinkler facility 144 by rotating it. For effecting this control function the control element 300 has e. g. a U-form recess 302 or other form of a clear area co-operating D with said aperture 142 or sprinkler facility 144. Rotating this recess 302 to full or partial registry with either of them the contents of the box 100 or the container 160 can be dispensed. The form both or either of the recess 302 and the aperture 142 can be designed to allow a certain amount of elongate pieces of a food product such as spaghetti to be dispensed out of the box. Advantageously, the shape of both or either of the recess 302 and 20 the aperture 142 aperture is similar to that of the envelope of a single portion of spaghetti as lying on the inner surface of mantle 130 of the box being in dispensing position. This allows sufficiently precise metering of each portion, even of the last one.

Instead of the sprinkler facility 144 the container 166 can have a simple access opening allowing items such as ketchup, cream or other pasta filled bags to be dispensed or taken 25 out. To facilitate said control element 300 to be rotated into the desired angular position protrusions 304 are formed on its accessible surface.

Fig. 4 shows another version of control element 300. In this embodiment said control element 300 is consisting of a resilient synthetic material and has a generally cylindrical sleeve 308at its perimeter surrounding the above bulge 150 on the edge of the mantle 130 of 30 said box 100 and having a protrusion 310 protruding inwardly and defining an elastic snap- fit connection with said bulge 150 allowing rotation of said control element 300 relative to the box 100 but preventing its unintentional getting loose of said control element 300. On said control element 300 an aperture 308 is provided to allow dispensing a dose of pasta if the aperture 142 provided on lid 140 and the aperture 308 of said control element 300 are aligned. Partial alignment results in dispensing a partial dose. This embodiment requires caps 400 to be attached to the other closed end 120 of said box 100.

As shown in Figs. 1 and 3 one of the caps 400 may be loaded with a separate component of a food product, which may be a spice, a paste, a sauce, grated cheese etc. This component J can be packed in e. g. small cups or foil bags 500 comprising this product 530 in a sealed fashion. The cups or bags 500 may have a rim 520 having a generally circular circumference snugly fitting into the inner space of cap 400. This means that the mantle 430 of cap 400 has an inner diameter slightly smaller than the outside diameter of bags 500. This snug fit allows the bags 500 to be retained inside the cap 400. To allow the bags 500 to be o taken out from the cap 400 all of them are provided with a pulling element 510 such as a tab extending beyond the diameter of the bags 500 and folded back onto the accessible surface of the bags 500. Such a tab can be grasped by finger and allows pulling out the bags 500 one by one. Another form of pulling element 510 shaped as a recess is shown in Fig. 1. This recess allows pulling out a bag 500 by a finger.

15 Fig. 3 shows a particular embodiment of cap 200. At the intersection of closed second end 220 and mantle 230 of the cap 200 an annular outer bulge 250 is formed having generally the same form and size as bulge 150 on the edge of box 100. Consequently, the other cap 400 can be fitted onto this bulge 250 by snapping it thereon. The inner surface of mantle 230 can be configured to have formations removably retaining bags 500. Such a formation 20 can be realised as a bulge 232 extending radially inwards on the inner surface of the mantle 230. The bulge 232 can have an annular form, however, can be realised as a plurality of spaced protrusions arranged along a circle line on the inner surface of the mantle 230.

Adjacent to bulge 232 an annular grove can be formed allowing reliable snapping of the cap 200 on the bulge 150 of the box 100 or of another cap 400.

25 The whole cap 200 can be converted into a sprinkler by snapping a partly perforated disc into this annular grove 234.

It can be appreciated that the invented dispenser can be adapted to receive and dispense at least two components of a food product. As an example the box 100 may be loaded with spaghetti, the container 160 inside the box 100 can be loaded with a spice mix to be strewn 30 onto the boiled spaghetti immediately after boiling then a sauce can be spread from a bag 500 loaded into the cap 400 traded along with the spaghetti. The bags 500 can include alternately a sauce and grated cheese. It is also envisaged that either of the caps 200,400 can include a different component of the food product either in granular or solid or liquid form either in separate packages or in bulk, and may be structured as a sprinkler which can be removable attached to the dispenser.

A food product offered in public stores and prepared to be cooked in small restaurants, buffets or households may comprise e. g. five components. As an example a pasta-based 5 product may comprise five portions (500 g) of spaghetti, five portions of a spice mix packed carefully in a bag made of a well salable metallized foil, five portions of dried ham packed into a perforated or semipermeable foil and an outer well sealing bag or cup, five portions of a concentrated spaghetti sauce packed into a small cups and sealed by a pelable foil cover, and five portions of grated and dried cheese.

A portion of spaghetti food may be easily prepared by using the dispenser according to the invention. After taking out of one of the caps a bag of dried ham the outer package is removed and the inner bag of a perforated or semipermeable foil is immersed into 1 litre and a half of cold water and is heated to boil. Then a portion (100g) of spaghetti should be put into the water boiled for e. g. 8 minutes. The dried ham will be soaked with water 15 penetrating through the semipermeable foil in the meantime. Then the boiled spaghetti should be separated from the water (e. g. by a short sieving leaving the boiled pasta in well wet state) and immediately put into a serving bowl or plate and right away strewn with a portion of spice mixture comprising salt as well. The ham is then mixed with a portion of concentrated spaghetti sauce taken from a small cup by peeling off its cover and a portion of 20 water measured with this emptied cup and this mixture is spread over the spaghetti. A bag of grated cheese is strewn onto the spaghetti prepared this way just before serving.

The dispenser according to the invention has been explained on hand of a box 100 having a circular cylinder form, however, other kinds of cylinders or even prismatic shapes are also imaginable.

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