The present invention relates to a large-scale package for pasty substances, a method for packing a substance, as well as an unloading mechanism.

An object of the large-scale consumer package is to serve consumers using large amounts of a substance by facilitating the processing of a substance, the storage as well as the handling of a used package material. The intended use covers all applications using a foodstuff or some otherwise hard-to- pump or non-pu pable (for example, pasty, sticky, tough, pump¬ ing sensitive etc.) product, which require protection (stabili¬ ty, hygienic or chemical protection, two-way protection from light, oxygen or moisture etc.) provided by a suitable-sized transfer unit or a package. Concrete examples include marga¬ rines for bakeries, e.g. margarines for rolling, jams, marma¬ lades and fillings for bakeries and confectionary industry and mayonnaise-type of products, pastes and emulsions for foodstuff industry. The question can also be about other type of products than foodstuffs, for example detergents for laundries , paints, glues and resins for building and furniture industry.

At present, margarine is supplied to a large-scale consumer on pallets in 2,5 kg blocks in laminated paper wrappers. The

wrappers must be unwrapped and removed and a piece of margarine must be placed in a feeding funnel for further delivery to processing. The method is inconvenient and tedious and requires personnel for unloading.

Margarine can also be delivered without a wrapper in a contain¬ er from which it is unloaded gravitationally or by means of an unloading mechanism into a feed screw. The method does not produce package waste, nor does it require manual unloading work but, on the other hand, the method does require major investments, technical modifications to the packing end and the container return system.

All these prior methods are inconvenient for the producer and/or consumer in terms of product handling, its dosage or waste problems and, in addition, these systems most often require manual handling in unloading and dosage. This is a major drawback considering that, e.g. in the case of margarine, the question can be of large amounts of substance to be handled e.g. in batches of a thousand kilograms.

British Patent publication 1.536.476 discloses a method and apparatus for stuffing "a sausage casing". In the first place, the cited patent relates to stuffing a sausage but the publica¬ tion also mentions that it can be applied to the processing of viscous substances, such as fats and margarines. However, the publication says nothing about how to deal with or resolve the problems of large-scale consumers. The stuffed products de¬ scribed in the cited publication correspond to the above-men¬ tioned individual packages.

An object of the present invention is to eliminate the above drawbacks and to provide for a consumer an easy-to-use and

labor efficient system, which does not require unpacking of wrappers, nor transporting, opening or returning of jam packs, nor container traffic. In production, the same equipment and materials can be used for packing the above-mentioned various products.

A package of the invention is characterized in that it compris¬ es a flexible continuous tubular casing for a pasty substance, sealed at both ends for packing a large amount of product. In practice, the length of a packing tube relative to its diameter or height is at least several dozen times greater. The tube material preferably comprises a plastic film tubing with or without a seam. The tubing may have a cross-section which is a circle or close to it, so the question is about a tubular product. Alternatively, the tubing may be more or less flat¬ tened, whereby its cross-section differs from circular and may be e.g. rectangular. Since the question is about a package of considerable length, it will be pleated and rolled up on a support frame which is thus delivered to a consumer for use. In operation, the tubing is drawn from the support device at the rate the packed product is being used.

The invention relates also to a method for packing a pasty substance so as to be readily handled by a large-scale consum¬ er, said method being characterized in that a rather large amount of pasty substance is stuffed in a continuous flexible tubing.

In order to facilitate the practical handling of a long tubing, the stuffed tubing is placed in a support frame. The frame can be for example a box or a reel stand of suitable size, which is delivered to a large-scale consumer as such. At the place of application, the frame serves at the same time as a storage and

supply facility for unloading a suitable amount of product therefrom, as need may be. The frame/box can be disposable, suitable for recycling, or returnable.

The invention relates also to a mechanism for unloading the contents of a package as described above. The mechanism is characterized in that said mechanism comprises a stripping unit, which is fitted with at least one shearing knife for cutting the package casing and through which the tubular pack¬ age is delivered, as well as means for deflecting the cut-off casing strips from the product passage, and this is possibly followed by a chopper for cutting the stripped substance to pieces.

In one preferred embodiment, the stripping unit comprises a frame, through which the package is advanced and the inner surface of said frame carries at least one knife, preferably two opposing knives, extending towards the interior thereof.

In a system of the invention, a product is packed in a long flexible disposable tubing, which provides a casing for the product. The tubing can be a continuous long hose sealed only at its ends or, alternatively, divided in shorter sections according to the intended application. Thus, the tubing length varies but its length is nevertheless considerable, at least several dozen times more than its diameter or height. For example, if margarine is packed in such a tubing, the usual amount for a large-scale consumer can be 800 kg. The long tubing is placed in a transport frame in a pleated fashion or wound up_therein as a roll. Alternatively, the tubing can be wound up on a reel. The tubing can be a flattened tube for obtaining a mat-like rather wide package. This type of packing can be used for obtaining quite a compact pleated package.

For a package material it is possible to use per se known flexible materials and the selection of a material depends on the intended application and requirements. For example, the basic material body may comprise an inexpensive LD-polyethylene film, on which can be laminated, if desired, a suitable neces¬ sary protective layer for protecting the contents from oxygen, light, moisture, solvents, dirt, dust, microbes etc. The sur¬ face can, of course, be provided with printing or suitable patterns. A tubular configuration requires a relatively small amount of material and, in addition, the tubing diameter can always be selected according to what is required for the in¬ tended application. The varying diameter does not complicate the use of a package since the modern packing machines allow for varying diameters.

The tubing can be manufactured by using a blown film for pro¬ ducing a seamless tube. Alternatively, it is possible to employ a sealed film or a plurality of sealed films whereby, in addi¬ tion to a tubular configuration, it is also possible to use a flattened tubular configuration.

A stuff-filled tubing, the tubing in this case referring to tubes with cross-sections other than circular, is placed for transport in a support frame in pleats or, alternatively, it is wound into a helical configuration. The transport frame can be made of wood, cardboard or plastics whereby, for example, the cardboard frame can be disposable and the plastics could refer to a reusable type of plastic. The frame is preferably of a standard shape and size.

The pasty substance is delivered to a user in a frame as de¬ scribed above and in the place of application the stuff is discharged from the tubing by means of an unloading mechanism

of the invention, described later in more detail. The unloading mechanism is used for unloading the product directly from the transport frame and the package material is deflected aside into collecting vessels. For more solid products, the mechanism can be fitted at its discharge end with a wire cutter for cutting the product to desired lengths.

The benefits offered by a package and method of the invention include extensive possibilities of selecting the package mate¬ rials with a wide variety of suitable materials available and, thus, it is possible to consider all sorts of special requests in relation to the package and its contents, for example after- pasteurization and impermeability to oxygen.

The invention is highly suitable for non-pumpable and barely pumpable products and, thus, no special transport containers are required, either, so the invention does not involve major investments either on the producer or consumer side. Further¬ more, the package is easy to use and it saves labor. In the method, there is no need to unwrap wrappers and the product packages need not be transported anywhere for unpacking and returning. In addition, the same equipment and materials can be used in production for packing a wide variety of various prod¬ ucts.

The invention will now be described in more detail with refer¬ ence made to the accompanying drawings, in which

figs. 1-4 illustrate various practical embodiments for a pack¬ age of the invention,

fig. 5 shows a basic solution for an unloading mechanism of the invention, and

fig. 6 shows a cross-section for a stripping unit included in the unloading mechanism.

Fig. 1 illustrates one embodiment for a package of the inven¬ tion with a hollow tubing pleated in a box-shaped frame. The tubing along with its frame is delivered to a consumer for use,

Fig. 2 shows the same embodiment as fig. 1 with the exception that the tubing is wound in the frame into a helical shape.

Fig. 3 illustrates a package, wherein a tubing is wound on a reel carried by a support stand, which can be placed as a single unit in a support frame for easier transportation.

Fig. 4 a) shows an alternative package, wherein the tubing is not hollow but a wide mat-like flat product, which is easy to pleat and provides for effective filling of a support frame. In this embodiment of the invention, the product is packed in the form of a strip-like sheet or web that can be dimensioned according to required application. Thus, for example, the product width can be matched with that required in a bakery and, furthermore, thickness of the stuff can be determined so as to obtain a metric weight required for each application. From the package, a web-like product can be spread directly on where it is needed in a desired width and amount.

Fig. 4 b) shows an embodiment, wherein a mat-like package is wound to form a roll, from which a necessary amount of product can be readily unloaded by unrolling a length corresponding to the amount of product.

Figs. 5 and 6 illustrate one unloading mechanism of the inven¬ tion, which basically comprises a belt conveyor 3 as well as a stripping unit 4 and a wire cutter 9, possibly included there¬ in.

Approximately 700 kg of a product, for example margarine, is stuffed in a tubular casing 2 which is pleated in a support frame 1. Both ends of the tubing are sealed. A suitable diame¬ ter for the tube is about 65 mm, whereby the tubing has a length of about 200 m (with a diameter of 100 mm, the length is about 90 m) . Both ends are provided with "navel cords" for easier actuation of the mechanism. Frame 1 is of a standard shape and size and manufactured from cardboard.

The navel cord consisting of empty package tubing 2 is threaded through the unloading mechanism and the mechanism is actuated, the end of the tubing being delivered to the upstream end of a belt conveyor 3. The belt conveyor comprises two belts pressing against each other through the action of a spring force, one being a driving belt and the other free running. The belts are operated electrically. The total length of belt conveyor 3 can be e.g. 1000 mm.

From belt conveyor 3 said tubing 2 is advanced to a stripping unit 4, comprising a tubular sleeve which is hinged and can be opened in the longitudinal direction of the tubing. The sleeve has an inner diameter which is somewhat larger than the outer diameter of tubing 2.

From the_inner surface of sleeve 4 carries two opposing shear¬ ing knives 5 extending towards the center. The knives 5 are adjustable and removable for re-sharpening. The knives 5 are designed such that, in addition to cutting the tubing material,

the knives remove the casing strips aside. Downstream of sleeve 5, the cut-off casing strips are directed through two pairs of rollers 6 into a waste bin 8. The pairs of rollers 6 are driven by an electric motor and they have a gear ratio which matches or slightly exceeds the advancing speed of belt conveyor 3. In the case shown in fig. 5, downstream of the pairs of rollers 6 included in stripping unit 4, the contents of a tubing package are forwarded to a wire cutter 9 for cutting a rod 7 to suit¬ able pieces 10, which are collected in a feed funnel 11 for further processing.

The unloading mechanism can be provided with control elements for a fully automatic operation and the regulator and control elements control the operation of conveyor 3, stripping unit 4 and its pairs of rollers 6 as well as the operation of a chop¬ per and also monitor the amount of substance arriving in feed funnel 11.

The above figs. 5 and 6 illustrate a stripping unit 4 provided with two opposing shearing knives 5. It is obvious that the number of knives may vary. It is also possible to use just a single knife 5 for cutting open the tubing wall. If the unload¬ ing speed should be increased or if the tubing has a rather large diameter, the number of knives can be further increased.

If the tubing has a shape other than tubular, the shape of stripping unit 4 must be selected accordingly. For example, if a mat-like package is to be handled (fig. 4), the process preferably involves two knives 5, located within the edge portions _^ of the mat for opening the packages at their edges. The top and bottom films of a thus opened package are deflected from its traveling path, whereby the web-like substance is as such ready for spreading wherever needed. In a preferred case,

the web has its width and thickness dimensioned according to a desired application for obtaining a suitable length-weight.