Compartmented Tray for Condiment Containers

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to a compartmented tray for portion control cups for holding condiments such as salad dressing.

Prior inventors have proposed numerous compartmented trays for various products. For restaurant use, a tray for holding a number of cups containing condiments should be disposable and inexpensive to make, yet strong. In particular, the tray should be designed so that, when fully loaded, it can be grasped and lifted at only one end without bending substantially, buckling or breaking In addition, the tray should be nestable and should achieve high packing density.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An object of the invention is provide a molded plastic tray for holding containers, for example portion control cups of salad dressing.

These and other objects are attained by a compartmented tray as described below.

In the description and claims below, several dimensions are given in proportion to one another, as the invention may be scaled up or down considerably for different intended applications. Describing the structure by its proportions best defines the invention, whatever its overall size.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the accompanying drawings,

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a compartmented tray embodying the invention, shown from the front, end and top;

FIG. 2 is a bottom plan view thereof;

FIG. 3 is an end view thereof;

FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken on the line 4-4 in FIG. 2; and

FIG. 5 is a sectional view taken on the line 5-5 in FIG. 2.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

A compartmented tray 10 embodying the invention is molded from a polymeric plastic material.

The material presently preferred is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), because it is acceptable for food use, and is inexpensive, strong, stiff, attractive, and is a thermoplastic which can be molded in conventional injection molding machines.

Other materials might be used to make the tray, however.

The tray material is preferably of substantially uniform thickness. The thickness of the material is chosen to provide adequate strength for a particular intended use, considering that the tray must have sufficient flexural strength such that, when fully loaded, it is lifted at opposite ends, or by only one end, it does not buckle or deform substantially. Suitable thicknesses will usually be within the range of 0.020 to 0.030 inches.

As one can see in FIG. 1, the preferred tray 10 has at least two rows of receptacles 12, a two-by-four receptacle array being shown. Preferably, the receptacles are identical in size, shape and spacing. Each receptacle has a bottom wall 14 with a circular periphery and a side wall 16 extending upward from the periphery of the bottom wall around a vertical receptacle axis “V”. The side walls have a taper angle a in the range of 1° to 10°. The center-to-center distance of the receptacles is identified by dimension “C”.

The receptacles are interconnected by a planar top wall 18 which extends outward from said side walls and is bounded by a continuous peripheral rim 20. The overall height of the tray, and thus the depth of the receptacles, is identified by dimension “H” (FIG. 4).

All the receptacles are interconnected by troughs 22, 24. Each trough has a rounded bottom 26 (preferably semicylindrical) extending along a horizontal axis “T” and planar side walls 28 which diverge slightly at an angle in the range of 1° to 3°. Preferably, the trough axis intersects the vertical axis “V” of each receptacle through which the trough passes.

The horizontal axis of each trough lies a distance h1 (see FIG. 4) below the top wall. That distance may be in the range of 0.1 to 0.5 times the tray height, i.e., 0.1≦h1/H≦0.5. The bottoms of the troughs lie above the bottoms of the receptacles, preferably a distance h2 in the range of 0.1 to 0.5 time the tray height, i.e., 0.1≦h2/H≦0.5. Even at the lower limit, the bottoms of the troughs are well above the bottoms of the receptacles.

Each receptacle bottom has an inside diameter D and the semicylindrical portion of each trough has an inside diameter d. The preferred ratio d/D is in the range of 0.4 to 0.6.

The dimensions and proportions for a presently most preferred tray are shown in the table below:

Referring again to FIG. 1, one can see that the troughs and peripheral receptacle walls define octagonal mesas 30 between each pair of diagonally adjacent receptacles. The mesa tops are preferably coplanar with the top wall.

The rim of the tray, best seen in FIG. 3, has an L-shaped reinforcing flange 32 that extends downward and then outward from the top wall. The rim gives the tray much greater flexural stiffness than it would otherwise have, and in conjunction with the stiffening provided by the troughs, results in a tray which is flexurally stiff and strong and can be lifted by one or both ends when fully loaded without failing.

Since the invention is subject to modifications and variations, it is intended that the foregoing description and the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as only illustrative of the invention defined by the following claims.