[0001] The present invention relates to a container for food, in particular for pizza.
[0002] The invention refers to the field of packaging of wet and fatty food, such as, for
example, ready-to-take pizza.
[0003] According to the Italian legislation dating back to 1973, containers intended for
direct contact with wet and fatty food, if made of paper, must be produced exclusively
with pure cellulose paper and without any paper waste.
[0004] Starting from this legislation, cardboard boxes spread to every take-away pizzerias,
with a parallelepiped shape with a square base and a height of about a tenth of the
side of the base, made from a corrugated cardboard blank, shaped in such a way that,
once folded, it can assume the desired box shape.
[0005] A first problem of this type of solution is due to the time required for the assembly
of the box. In fact, due to obvious space requirements, the blank is packaged for
transport in its flattened form and is folded to form the real pizza box directly
in the pizzeria. To avoid having to dedicate time to this operation during the period
of maximum affluence of customers, the staff who work in the pizzerias fold the boxes
in advance, to find them ready at the time of use.
[0006] This solution generates two additional problems, the first due to the fact that the
mounted boxes occupy a space about five to seven times greater than the blanks from
which they are obtained, the second for the possibility that in the already mounted
boxes, which have holes whose function will be to allow the escape of the steam released
by the pizza, dust and soot can enter and accumulate.
[0007] Moreover, the pizza boxes of a known type, if arranged to form a pile, as often happens
when more than one take-away pizza is taken by one person, are free to slide on each
other, with the risk that those arranged more at the top they can slip and fall.
[0008] Finally, the pizza boxes of the known type have a more or less high degree of toxicity,
due to the fact that the corrugated cardboard is obtained by gluing together different
layers with a starch-based glue added with 10% of caustic soda and the 10% of borax,
two highly volatile chemicals that, at high temperatures such as those of the freshly
baked pizza (about 80-90 °C), pass into the gas phase and are absorbed by the pizza,
altering its smell and taste but above all making it toxic.
[0009] In this context it is proposed the solution according to the present invention, which
aims to provide a container for food, particularly for pizza, completely non-toxic,
already completely assembled and which can be stacked with other containers of the
same type, both when opened, reducing to the maximum the total volume occupied, and
when closed, maintaining the internal space necessary to hold the pizza, so as to
prevent the sliding of one box on the other.
[0010] These and other results are obtained according to the present invention by proposing
a container for food, in particular for pizza, made of compact cardboard of pure cellulose
with long fiber, made with a hot drawing system.
[0011] The object of the present invention is therefore to provide a container for food,
in particular for pizza, which allows to overcome the limits of the pizza boxes according
to the prior art and to obtain the previously described technical results.
[0012] A further object of the invention is that said pizza container can be made with substantially
low costs, both in terms of production costs and management costs.
[0013] Another object of the invention is to provide a container for food, particularly
for pizza, which is simple, safe and reliable.
[0014] A specific object of the present invention therefore forms a container for food,
in particular for pizza, comprising a base and a lid, coupled on one side, said base
having flared side walls, wherein said container is made of compact cardboard of pure
long fiber cellulose.
[0015] Preferably, according to the present invention, the bottom of said base has stiffening
pads and said lid has a raised perimetrical relief with respect to the central part,
of shape and size able to lodge with contact, along its entire internal perimeter,
the base of an overlying container of the same type.
[0016] The present invention will now be described, by way of illustration, but not by way
of limitation, according to a preferred embodiment thereof, with particular reference
to the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which:
- Figure 1 shows a perspective view of a container for food, in particular for pizza,
according to the present invention, in an open position,
- Figure 2 shows a perspective view of the container for food of Figure 1, in the closed
position, and
- Figure 3 shows a perspective view of a plurality of containers for food such as that
of Figure 1, stacked together, in an open position.
[0017] With reference to the figures, the container for food, in particular for pizza, according
to the present invention is indicated in its entirety with the reference numeral 10
and consists of a blank of long fiber pure cellulose compact cardboard, shaped by
hot drawing.
[0018] In particular, the container 10 comprises a base 11 and a lid 12, coupled along a
folding line 13 of the blank. The base 11 has a square shape, with rounded corners,
with side walls 14 flared with truncated-cone geometry, with the ideal vertex facing
downwards, to allow stacking of several containers 10 on each other, in an open position,
as shown in Figure 3. The base 15 of the base 11 has reliefs 16, with inclined connecting
walls between the peak of the reliefs 16 and the bottom 15 of the base 11, the reliefs
16 assuming a truncated conical section, with the ideal vertex facing towards the
top, to allow stacking of several containers 10 on top of each other with maximum
reduction of the occupied space. The reliefs 16 have the function of rendering the
bottom 15 of the base 11 more rigid.
[0019] The lid 12 has a square shape with rounded corners and has, next to its perimeter,
a square-shaped relief 17 with a truncated cone section, with the ideal vertex facing
upwards, with lid 12 closed, which surrounds the central part 18 of the lid, which
is thus in a lower position, i.e., more towards the inside of the container 10, to
allow, in an open position, the stacking of several containers 10 on each other, with
maximum reduction of the volume occupied (as shown in figure 3), but also to allow
the lid 12 to house, in the central part 17, the base 11 of a container 10 of the
same type, resting on it.
[0020] On the peripheral edge 19 of the base 11 and on the peripheral edge 20 of the lid
12, on the side opposite to that of the folding line 13, there are respective cuts
21, 22 of the blank, which define respective tabs 23, 24. The folding of the tabs
23, 24 allows to secure the lid 12 on the base 11 of the container 10.
[0021] The present invention has been described by way of illustration, but not of limitation,
according to its preferred embodiments, but it is to be understood that variations
and/or modifications may be made by those skilled in the art without thereby departing
from the relative scope of protection, as defined from the attached claims.
1. Container (10) for food, in particular for pizza, comprising a base (11) and a lid
(12), coupled on one side, said base (11) having flared side walls (14), characterised in that said container (10) is made of compact cardboard of pure long-fiber cellulose.
2. Container (10) for food according to claim 1, characterised in that the bottom (15) of said base (11) has stiffening reliefs (16).
3. Container (10) for food according to claim 1 or 2, characterised in that said lid (12) has a peripheral relief (17) raised with respect to the central part
(18), of shape and dimensions apt for housing with contact, along its entire internal
perimeter, the base (11) of an overlying container (10) of the same type.