The present invention relates to a process for making a laser coded fold wrapped food concentrate tablet. Further aspect of the invention is a laser coded fold wrapped food concentrate tablet .

It is well known that food concentrate tablets are coded by printing an ink on the packaging material. Due to different technical reasons including drying time of the ink and

abrasion during further processing steps the printing on the packaging material is commonly done after wrapping the food concentrate tablets. As the ink printing is done on a packaged food product, which has direct contact to the food product, the ink has to be food compliant. This means that no harmful subst nces which if ingested cou health problems are allowed. In addition that no possible harmful substances are allowed many times the water level of inks are too high due to which the needed viscosity is not reached causing the ink to create smear patch and contamination with ink of the used machines. New methods have been tested to improve this printing method or for obtaining a different method of applying ink but until now, no ideal printing technique has been evolved.

Hence, there is a persisting need in the art and in food industry to provide a better solution for coding a fold wrap food concentrate tablet avoiding for example the use of harmful substances within the coding, avoiding drying time of the coding, avoiding abrasion of the coding, avoiding

contamination of food due to coding and avoiding coding residues to packaging machineries. Summary of the invention

The object of the present invention is to improve the state of the art or at least provide an alternative to code a fold wrapped food concentrate tablet.

Particularly, the objective is to provide a coded fold wrapped food concentrate tablet and process to make such coded food concentrate tablet: i) no contaminants release of the coding e.g. ink; ii) no smearing of the coding; iii) no contamination of food due to coding; iv) no coding residues to machineries; v) no contamination to fingers of operators; vi) less

production stoppages caused by refill of coding material; vii) a good readable code; viii) a coding which is suitable for high speed production lines; ix) a system which is suitable to code at least 30000 characters in a minute; x) no drying time of the coding material; xi) no environmental impact of empty ink cartridges or ink barrels.

The object of the present invention is achieved by the subject matter of the independent claims. The dependent claims further develop the idea of the present invention.

Accordingly, the present invention provides in a first aspect a process for coding a fold wrapped food concentrate tablet comprising the steps of:

a) first laser ablating a code on a packaging material, b) then fold wrap the tablet with the laser coded packaging material . In a second aspect, the invention relates to a coded fold wrapped food concentrate tablet, wherein the coding is made by laser ablating of a packaging material. In a third aspect, the invention relates to a coded fold wrapped food concentrate tablet obtained by the described process .

It has been surprisingly found by the inventors that laser ablating a code on a packaging material of a fold wrapped food concentrate tablet has certain advantages. The coding is very good readable and there is no possible smearing. There is no abrasion of the coding during further packaging processing steps even the coding is done before fold wrapping the food concentrate product. Also no drying step has to be considered which reduce production time. The laser ablating can be performed within a high speed fold wrapping packaging process. Also there will be no contamination of machineries or the food concentrate tablet itself with a coding material e.g. with an ink. Moreover, the laser ablating can be done in any

direction .

Detailed Description of the invention

The present invention pertains to a process for coding a fold wrapped food concentrate tablet comprising the steps of:

a) first laser ablating a code on a packaging material, b) then fold wrap the tablet with the laser coded packaging material.

The term "food concentrate tablet" refers to a bouillon or seasoning tablet or to a chocolate and malt tablet, preferably to a bouillon or seasoning tablet.

The term "laser ablating" refers to a coding wherein the laser removes material to create depth which change the color, contrast or reflectivity of the surface. In an embodiment by laser ablating at least a printing layer of the packaging material is removed. In a further embodiment by laser ablating a printing layer and also the metallization layer of the packaging material is removed.

The term "code" refers to any digit, letter, character, number, symbol and/or logo. In an embodiment the coding refers to an expiry date, production number, batch number and/or manufacturing date.

The principles of laser coding involves reflecting an intense light beam off mirrors, through a stencil, and onto the material to be coded.

The laser beam generated by a gas (e.g. C02) or solid state type of laser is guided onto the surface to be coded via a 2- axis beam guidance optic situated about 50 -200 mm above the surface allowing a coding field being of size 50 x 50 - 200 x 200 mm. The code itself has a size of 1 to 4 mm height and width. The area of the surface to be coded is shielded with a Laser safety housing. The safety housing is connected with a fume extractor in a way that within a continuous air flow the gases generated by the coding process are transported to the filter equipped fume extractor. The wavelength of the laser is between 0.4ym to llym, preferably between lym to llym. The position of the laser coding is controlled by means of a print-mark sensor and the speed by means of an encoder.

The term "fold wrapped" refers to a process of folding a packaging material around a food concentrate (tablet)

including sealing of sides and bottom of the packaging

material. It is not that a food concentrate (tablet) is fed into a plastic tube and fin sealed at the bottom and sealed on the sides. Fold wrap does not have an external excess

packaging material. The food concentrate is not loosely contained within the packaging material. The term "tablet" means a tablet or cube obtained by pressing a free flowing food concentrate powder into a tablet or cube form.

The term "packaging material" refers to a plastic film and/or paper film. In an embodiment of the invention the packaging material comprises a printed metallized plastic film and/or a printed paper based film.

The term "printed" refers to at least one printing layer of color at the plastic film and/or paper based film. The term "metallized" or "metallization" refers to at least one metal layer within the packaging material, preferably it refers to an aluminum layer.

In an embodiment of the invention the packaging material is a plastic film, especially for packaging rectangular objects such as stock cubes, comprising a base film which is

metallized (preferably with aluminum) on one side consisting of oriented polypropylene (OPP) film or polyethylene

terephthalate (PET) film or oriented polyethylen (OPE) with printing on the metallized layer and an outer layer of heat- sealing varnish. In a preferred embodiment an opaque and oriented polypropylene film (OPP) is used as the base film, preferably including a white cavitated OPP and clear OPP skin. The opacity of the base material film is done by orientation of the polymer and by adding fillers. The cavitation are, produced by adding fillers and/or air into the film.

In an embodiment of the invention the packaging material has a thickness of 10 to lOOym, preferably 20 to 80ym. In an

embodiment of the invention the packaging material is a plastic film that has a base film which consists of an opaque and oriented polyproplyene (OPP) . This base film is provided with metallization on one side. To improve bonding, the metallization is coated with a primer on its side facing away from the base film, inks are then applied on the primer. A pattern of sealing lacquer is applied to this printing, helping the film to be sealed at higher temperature. An over lacquer is printed in the area where no seal lacquer is applied .

The invention further relates to a coded fold wrapped food concentrate tablet, wherein the coding is made by laser ablating of a packaging material.

There are less production stoppages for a laser ablation coded fold wrapped food concentrate tablet compared to a coding with ink due to a refill of the ink. For example by a thermos- inject (TIJ) coding by printing a stop is needed at least once a day and normally at least every 8 hours. By using a

continuous inject (CIJ) coding by printing a stop is needed at least every week to clean the machinery. Using a laser coding avoids planned production stoppages. The laser coding decrease the environmental impact caused by empty ink cartridges or ink barrels. In case the ink coding is done before the fold wrapping a further likelihood of abrasion of the coding within the followed processing steps, e.g. using rollers, is given and the drying time of the ink has to be considered in the further processing steps.

By laser ablating a code on a packaging material at least the printing layer of the packaging material is removed. Depending on the needed contrast and readability of the laser code it might occur that the metallization layer of the packaging material needs also to be removed and therefore the effective moisture barrier and/or light barrier of the packaging

material is destroyed. In case the laser ablating is done before wrapping the tablet and the laser code is visible after wrapping within an overlapping area of the packaging material (top layer within overlapping area) (2) (3) it has the advantage that the moisture and/or light barrier of the tablet can be ensured as the packaging material below the laser coded packaging material within the overlapping area is not laser coded (bottom layer within the overlapping area) . Therefore the same shelf-life of the product can be guaranteed. In case the laser ablating is done after the wrapping of the tablet it might occur that also the moisture and/or light barrier of the normally not laser coded packaging material layer (bottom layer with the overlapping area) are destroyed due to the very thin packaging material, discrepancies of thickness of the packaging material, high speed process and altering process of the laser. In Fig 1 the overlapping packaging area (2) of a side fold (1), bottom fold (6), envelope fold (4) wrapped food concentrate tablet or cube (5) is shown.

Those skilled in the art will understand that they can freely combine all features of the present invention disclosed herein. In particular, features described for the product of the present invention may be combined with the methods of the present invention and vice versa. Further, features described for different embodiments of the present invention may be combined .

Example 1 :

A packaging material comprising a printed Al-metallized plastic film with oriented polypropylene (OPP) has been laser coded by removing the ink layer of the plastic film using a CO2-20W-9.3ym-laser . A focus distance of 140mm provides a

100mm x 100mm coding area with 28 digits coded within 3 lines mentioning an expiry date, manufacturing date and production line) . After coding the packaging material a bouillon tablet has been fold wrapped using a Theegarten BCW3 machine

resulting in a side fold (1) wrapped bouillon tablet with the laser coding in the overlapping packaging material as shown within Fig l a). In one minute 1200 tablets can be laser coded and fold wrapped. Example 1 fulfilled all objectives discussed above (see i)-xi)) compared to a coding with ink.

Example 2 :

Moisture uptake measurements of different side fold (1) wrapped bouillon tablets:

2.1: Tablet laser coded within an overlapping area (Fig la)) 2.2: Tablet laser coded within a non-overlapping area

2.3: Tablet not laser coded

Moisture uptake measurements were carried out in SPS 1μ

(ProUmid GmbH, Germany) . Bouillon tablets of 10 gr and a water activity of 0.35 were placed in a 52 mm pan and exposed to controlled temperature of 25 °C and relative humidity of 75 % for 10 days. Weight of the samples was automatically monitored and moisture uptake was measured in mg/tablet after 5 and 10 days. Measurements were carried out in duplicate.

Examples 2.1 and 2.2 have been laser coded before wrapping the bouillon tablet. All examples will result in a shelf stable product for several months (at least 3 months) . Nevertheless as can be shown within example 2.1 (laser coded within an overlapping area) the moisture uptake is only the half

compared to example 2.2 (laser coded within a non-overlapping area) and is similar to a wrapped bouillon tablet without any laser coding. Therefore example 2.1 guarantees the same shelf- life of a laser coded bouillon tablet as a not laser coded bouillon tablet.