Sets of pre-padded bags and methods of making same

Abstract

Pre-padded bags are produced from polymeric film material having a machine direction and a transverse direction, for packaging products such as fresh meats and poultry. A set of pre-padded end-seal bags comprises a first bag and a second bag, each bag comprising a first film portion and an underlying second film portion, the first and second film portions being sealed together with a transversely extending seal to form an end seal of each bag, the first and second film portions being sealed together with a longitudinal seal along the machine direction to form a side seal of each bag, the first bag being connected to the second bag in an area between the side seals of the bags, and each bag containing a fluid-absorbent pad.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to bags formed from polymeric film and containing fluid-absorbent pads for absorbing fluids. [0002] Poultry and meat are frequently sold in transparent plastic bags. A problem with this type of packaging is that the poultry or meat contains blood and other fluids that flow out of the meat after it has been packaged. The blood and other fluids accumulate in the package, detracting from its appearance. In addition, the blood and fluid sometimes leak from the package while the consumer is transporting it home from the market. To counter this problem, food bag manufacturers often insert an absorbent pad into the bag prior to packaging the food product. The pad absorbs the exuded blood and fluid and thereby enhances the appearance of the packaged product. In many cases, the absorbent pads are manually inserted into the bags. The manual labor associated with placing the absorbent pads in the bags prior to product packaging a...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0005] The present invention addresses the above needs and achieves other advantages, by providing a set of pre-padded end-seal bags and a process for making sets of such bags. The invention enables the number of printing cycles, as well as the number of cycles used to make the transverse seals, to be substantially reduced while making the same total number of bags, thereby enabling a substantial increase in the number of bags per extrusion die, as well as per print cycle and per transverse seal cycle. In addition, the sets of pre-padded bags in preferred embodiments have a lengthwise free shrink (i.e., shrink in the machine direction) that is less than the transverse free shrink (i.e., shrink across the width of the bags), so that during shrinking the bags have less tendency to distort flat, flexible, elongate products packaged in the bag.

[0006] The process can be used to produce sets of bags in which the bags of each set are connected with one another across the machine direction of the film being used to make the bags. Optionally, each set of bags can be provided with an appropriate number of longitudinal tear lines (i.e., tear lines running the length of the bags, i.e., in the machine direction) for ease in separating the bags from one another. Moreover, because the bags are connected to one another, the connected series of bags can be stretched out across the opening of a vacuum chamber without risk of overlap during sealing.

[0007] Additionally, the invention can be carried out so that each set of bags is connected to at least one other set of bags in a line of succession, e.g., resulting in a chain of sets of bags, which can be of indeterminate length as it comes off a production line. Optionally, this chain of sets of bags can be provided with transverse tear lines (i.e., a weakened region between the sets of bags, such as a line of perforations, etc.) so that each set of bags can be easily torn free of the chain of bags, as well as lengthwise (i.e., machine direction) tear lines between the bags of each set, so that the packaged product can be offered as singlets or any subset of the original set of bags.

Problems solved by technology

A problem with this type of packaging is that the poultry or meat contains blood and other fluids that flow out of the meat after it has been packaged.

The manual labor associated with placing the absorbent pads in the bags prior to product packaging adds to the cost and time associated with this operation.

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