Single-material package for containing fruit and vegetable produce with lid

Abstract

This consists of six pieces: a bottom (1), two side pieces (2), (2′) and two ends (3), (3′), and a lid or top (4), all made of medium or high density wood fiber and that can be assembled by means of a number of tabs (11) and (29) emerging from some of said pieces and which couple by a tongue and groove system to respective slots (19) and (17) made in other pieces. The box has stacking means which are materialized in upward extensions (20), (20′), (24), (24′) of the upper ends of the side pieces and of the ends, determining oblique edges, coinciding with notches of the same shape made in their lower edges, which allow these to be self-centring. The free outwardly-projecting ends of the securing tabs constitute a spacer between boxes, which when these are palletised means that conduits are formed to facilitate air circulation between them.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of International Patent Application No. PCT / ES2005 / 000001, filed Jan. 1, 2005, which was published in the Spanish language on Jul. 20, 2006, under International Publication No. WO 2006 / 075031 A1 and the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] This invention covers a box of the type used in marketing fruit and vegetable produce, specifically a box made of medium or high density wood fiber or some other similar product, incorporating holes to facilitate aeration of the product that it contains. [0003] The purpose of the invention is to provide a package able to withstand heavy loads, made of a single recyclable material, which can be transported dismantled and is easy to assemble, with no need for staples, nails or any kind of adhesive, facilitating its stacking and providing optimum ventilation of the products kept inside it. [0004] The usage of...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010] The single-material package for containing fruit and vegetable produce with a lid as proposed in this invention is intended to provide an entirely satisfactory solution to the problems stated above, being made up of six pieces of “MDF” medium or high density wood fiber or some other similar product. These pieces consist of a bottom, two sidepieces, two ends and a top or lid. All these pieces can be easily fitted together with no need for nails, staples nor any kind of adhesive.

[0011] The bottom consists of a basically rectangular piece with chamfered corners, a plurality of holes of different radiuses, evenly distributed across its surface, as well as a series of slots longitudinally spread along its smaller sides, with a plurality of trapezium-shaped tabs emerging from its larger edges to assemble the side pieces to said bottom easily.

[0014] This top, with a basically rectangular shape, and coinciding with the mouth of the box, has a number of holes, for proper aeration of the product inside, as well as to help viewing the contents, having two appendices for coupling to the aforementioned oval holes in the box ends in the middle zone of its shorter sides, so that after being attached, this top can also be used as a handle for the box, by means of its holes.

[0015] Both the box sides and the ends have triangular-shaped extensions or appendices on their upper edges. These extensions facilitate perfect vertical stacking of the boxes, when these have not been placed in perfect alignment for some reason, as the rounded lower edges of both the ends and the sides coincide with the sloping edges of these extensions, the upper box sliding on said sloping surface to its proper position by its own weight.

[0016] To get greater stability in stacking, the box ends have in turn a number of trapezium-shaped tabs along their upper edges, spaced out in such a way as to constitute a tongue and groove coupling with the tabs of the lower bottom securing edge of the end belonging to the box immediately above.

Problems solved by technology

Although these have the advantage of being able to be stored dismantled, taking up the least space possible, such boxes involve the disadvantage of having very low structural rigidity, which is why they cannot be used for storing excessively heavy products, apart from entailing the further problem of a major drop in their structural rigidity in the presence of humidity.

Although they have greater structural rigidity, to be assembled they require staples, nails or some kind of adhesive complicating the construction process, which results in making the final product more expensive.

This type of boxes also has the added problem of being difficult to recycle, due to the presence of said staples or nails, whose elimination in the recycling process becomes complicated, to such an extent that there are countries which do not allow in boxes with staples.

This type of boxes involves the further problem of being supplied assembled, consequently using up the space available, with the economic repercussions that this has.

This solution is valid for vertically stacking boxes, but when space reasons mean that several piles of boxes are stacked beside each other, forming several rows, the boxes located on the outside make it impossible to air the other boxes, as they cover these completely, with the resulting damage for the products stored.

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