In the consumer products industry, individual products are typically placed in large containers or cartons that are shipped to retail establishments such as supermarkets. When a shelf needs to be stocked with additional product, an employee usually brings a full carton to the shelf, opens it, price marks each product inside, and places them one-by-one on the shelf, which is very time consuming.
In many instances, retail establishments prefer shipping containers that can be converted into display trays. Advantages of display trays include being able to place many products on a shelf in one motion, and being able to stack several open trays in an aisle if shelf space is not available. One such shipping/display container is a bottom tray filled with product that is shrink-wrapped with a web of thermoplastic film. The container can be opened by puncturing and unwrapping the film which is then discarded. However, most thermoplastic films are not biodegradable and therefore present an environmental concern.
One well-known type of shipping carton that can be converted into a display tray has printed instructions to circumferentially slice the carton's sidewalls along a dotted or dashed line with a knife, razor, or other sharp instrument. In opening the carton in this fashion, it is very easy to accidentally cut too deeply through the carton's walls and into the individual products inside the carton. If the product is solid or granular such as laundry detergent, the damage is generally confined to the outermost packages which, although messy and expensive, is not as catastrophic as slicing into individual containers that house a liquid such as dishwashing detergent. In addition, using a sharp instrument to cut open a carton poses a safety concern.
Others have identified the above-described problems associated with opening shipping cartons with a knife and have proposed various alternatives. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,850,363, which issued to Jacobs on Nov. 26, 1974, discloses a shipping carton having a rip cord circumferentially attached to the interior surface of the carton's side walls. Pulling the rip cord tears the carton's side walls and separates the carton into a top section and a bottom section. However, this general type of easy-open shipping carton has been found to be unacceptable for two major reasons; first, if the carton is made of corrugated paperboard and the rip cord is positioned perpendicular to the corrugated flutes, a very large pulling force is needed to split the carton walls; and second, it is nearly impossible to split the carton walls along a straight line which results in a mutilated bottom tray that is substantially weakened and unattractive and therefore generally unacceptable for display purposes.
In light of the above, a major object of the present invention is to provide a shipping container or carton that can be readily opened without having to use a knife or other sharp instrument.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a shipping container or carton that can be readily split along a pre-selected line into a top section and a bottom section, the latter being useful as an attractive display tray having a straight and smooth upper edge.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a high-speed manufacturing method of making blanks that are used in erecting shipping containers of the present invention.
Another object of the present invention is to provide blanks that can be erected into shipping containers by using conventional machinery.
These and other objects, advantages, and novel features of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description with reference to the drawings and appended claims.