At present, food bags of the kind referred to are of laminated plastics material and comprise a screwthreaded hollow plastics spigot or spout which is heat-sealed to the bag material and normally closed by a screw-on cap to prevent the food in the bag from escaping or becoming contaminated when the bag is not in use. When a person is to be fed, the cap is removed and the bag is squeezed to eject the food either straight into the person's mouth, which is dangerous and cumbersome, especially for babies and in the case of where the food is very fluent, or the ejected food is aimed onto the concave operative portion of a spoon so that the mother or carer can more conveniently and less dangerously apportion the food, although problems are nevertheless encountered. More particularly, it is difficult to hold and at the same time squeeze the bag with selective pressure with one hand and aim the food onto the spoon held in the other hand without spilling large amounts of the food either on a baby's face or onto the floor or on the person doing the feeding. An additional disadvantage is that, while the person is doing the feeding, and concentrating on manipulating the bag to eject small amounts of the bag contents, the operative part of the spoon might be hurting the mouth or gums of the person being fed.

The present invention aims to overcome these problems by providing a spoon which is designed for food bags of the kind described.

According to the invention, a spoon for a food bag having a screwthreaded spout comprises a relatively hard hollow shank of plastics material provided with a screwthread designed to engage the screwthread of the spout on the bag and a concave operative portion of relatively soft plastics material moulded to the shank to form an integral whole, a communicating passage for the food being provided between the interior of the hollow shank and the concave operative portion of the spoon.

By means of the invention, the person doing the feeding is relieved of the task of holding a separate spoon and can use both hands to hold and properly squeeze the food bag at a selected pressure to eject food into the concave portion and at the same time direct the operative part of the spoon safely into to the fed person's mouth, with the added advantage of the spoon being less likely to harm the fed person's face or gums with the relatively soft plastics operative part of the spoon.

In explanation, modern plastics moulding technology nowadays permits a soft plastics material of a consistency similar to rubber for the operative spoon portion to be co-moulded to a stronger and more rigid plastics material for the screwthreaded shank and simultaneously forming the communicating passage.

A suitable material for the shank has been found to be polypropylene and for the operative concave portion to be a thermoplastic elastomer. The communicating passage is preferably about 6mm wide at the shank end, narrowing down to about 3mm at the end opening into the concave operative portion of the spoon. This permits controlled dispensing of even fluent food from the spoon into the mouth

Squeezable food bags or pouches are currently sold with their hollow spigots or spouts being externally screwthreaded for closing with a screw-on cap. In that case, the spoon according to the invention will have its shank provided with an internal screwthread for engagement with the spout of the bag. However, it will be evident that, for attachment to bags with internally screwthreaded spouts, the spoon of the invention will have an external screwthread on the shank. A spoon according to the invention can be sold in combination with each food bag but, because it is reusable, it can be sold in combination with more than one food bag or separately.

One example of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a top perspective view of a spoon according to the invention,

Figure 2 is a plan view of the spoon, and

Figure 3 is a side elevation of the spoon.

Referring to the drawings, the spoon 1 has its concave operative portion 2 of preferably flexible and soft thermoplastic material and it terminates in a co-moulded hollow shank 3 of relatively hard and more rigid polypropylene to form an integral whole. The operative portion 2 communicates with the interior of the shank 3 through a hole 4 which is approximately 3mm wide where it enters the operative potion 4 and it tapers to about 6mm in width where it enters the interior (not shown) of the shank 3.

The interior of the shank 3 is screwthreaded (not visible) for engagement with the externally screwthreaded spout on a conventional squeezable food bag (not shown). To facilitate screwing the spoon 1 onto the spout of the food bag without having to touch the flexible operative portion 2 for this purpose, the more rigid shank 3 can be used as a hand grip by being provided with external striations or ribs 6.