Portable container for transporting freshly prepared meals and/or goods or products
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing methods for delivering freshly prepared meals and goods result in significant packaging waste and are ergonomically challenging for delivery personnel, as they often require bending and handling of heavy, uninsulated containers.
Innovation Solution
A portable container with a cuboid body and drawer-like inserts that allows for direct delivery to a customer's plate, eliminating the need for outer packaging and featuring a height-adjustable support leg for ergonomic handling and ventilation to maintain food temperature.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If traditional folding boxes made of cardboard are used for food delivery, then the packaging is simple and inexpensive, but the boxes lack thermal insulation and mechanical strength, and generate significant packaging waste
Solution Approach 1:
The transport box combines cardboard outer shell with integrated thermal insulation layers and drawer-like inserts made of food-safe materials. This composite structure provides thermal insulation while maintaining the simplicity and low cost of cardboard-based packaging, resolving the contradiction between manufacturing ease and thermal performance.
2Temperature
If thermal boxes made of polystyrene are used for food delivery, then thermal insulation is improved, but the boxes are heavy and require outer packaging, increasing device complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The invention merges the outer packaging box and inner food container into a single integrated transport box. The drawer-like inserts are housed within the same structural shell, eliminating the need for separate outer packaging and reducing overall device complexity while maintaining thermal insulation performance.
3Ease of operation
If delivery personnel carry transport boxes manually, then the delivery process is simple, but the personnel experience ergonomic challenges when bending to place boxes on the floor
Solution Approach 1:
The invention introduces height-adjustable support legs that extend vertically from the transport box base. This dimensional addition allows the box to be positioned at ergonomic heights, eliminating the need for delivery personnel to bend down and reducing ergonomic strain while maintaining simple manual delivery operations.
4Loss of substance
If reusable packaging is implemented, then packaging waste is reduced, but deposit fees and similar issues reduce customer acceptance
Solution Approach 1:
The drawer-like inserts are designed as disposable or single-use components that can be easily discarded after one use. This approach eliminates the need for complex reuse and cleaning systems, reducing packaging waste without requiring customers to pay deposit fees or engage in complex return processes, thereby maintaining high customer acceptance.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution reduces packaging waste, enhances the delivery process by allowing ergonomic handling, and maintains food freshness through ventilation and insulation, improving the overall efficiency and hygiene of food delivery.
Implementation Method 1
The body and/or the at least one insert are provided with ventilation openings and/or ventilation channels
Implementation Method 2
The body, the at least one insert and/or the drawer-like inserts are made of heat-insulating material
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3~7
AI summary
To improve the transport of freshly prepared food and/or goods or products, and in particular to avoid or significantly reduce packaging waste and to make delivery ergonomic for the delivery person, the present invention proposes a portable container (1) for transporting freshly prepared food and/or goods or products, comprising a substantially cuboid body (2) open at a front side (2.0), with a lower base (2.1), a left side wall (2.2), a right side wall (2.3), a rear wall (2.4) and an upper base (2.5), optionally or as required with at least one preferably fixed central wall (2.6) extending parallel to the side walls (2.2, 2.3) and at least one drawer-like insert (3) open at a rear side (3.0) and at the top for receiving freshly prepared food and/or goods.Products, with a bottom base (3.1), a left side wall (3.2), a right side wall (3.3) and a front wall (3.4), the (insert (3)) can be inserted horizontally into the body (2) at the front side (2.0) of the body (2) or can be completely pulled out of the body (2).