Center-filled chewing gum piece, and apparatus and method for making same

• US 20070231426A1
• Filed: 03/29/2006
• Published: 10/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intergum Gida Sanayi ve Ticaret AS (Mondelez International, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Intergum Gida Sanayi ve Ticaret AS (Mondelez International, Inc.)
• Inventors: Levi, Albert, Acar, Nesim
• Granted Patent: US 7,556,487 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 426/5
• CPC Class Codes: A23G 4/20 Composite products, e.g. centre-filled , multi-layer, laminated
• CPC Class Codes: A23G 4/205 Hollow products, e.g. with inedible or edible filling, fixed or movable within the cavity
• CPC Class Codes: B30B 11/14 co-operating with moulds on a movable carrier other than a turntable or a rotating drum
• CPC Class Codes: B30B 11/34 for coating articles, e.g. tablets

Abstract

A dual-filled gum piece is provided having a first cavity filled with a liquid filling and a second cavity filled with a powder filling. The gum pieces are produced by extruding a gum rope having two separate channels respectively filled with liquid and powder, sizing and shaping the gum rope, cooling the gum rope, cutting the rope into discrete gum pieces, and finally cooling the gum pieces. The gum pieces optionally can be coated with a hard coating. In other aspects for single- and dual-filled gums, a process for making the gum pieces employs a rope sizer that reduces the diameter of the gum rope and shapes it to have a non-round cross-section, and a multi-story cooling tunnel having individually motor-driven conveyors.

Claims

1. A filled chewing gum product, comprising:

a gum piece defining a first cavity and a second cavity separate from the first cavity;

a liquid filling disposed in the first cavity; and

a powder filling disposed in the second cavity.

2. The filled chewing gum product of claim 1, further comprising a hard shell covering the outer surface of the gum piece.

3. The filled chewing gum product of claim 1, wherein the gum piece has a generally pillow-shaped configuration defining two opposite major surfaces and side edges of the gum piece that extend between the two opposite major surfaces.

4. The filled chewing gum product of claim 3, wherein the gum piece has a generally rectangular shape in plan view.

5. The filled chewing gum product of claim 4, wherein two side edges of the gum piece are linear in plan view.

6. The filled chewing gum product of claim 4, wherein all four side edges of the gum piece are linear in plan view.

7. The filled chewing gum product of claim 1, wherein the gum piece has a length exceeding a width of the gum piece, and wherein the first and second cavities are spaced apart in a direction extending across the width.

8. An apparatus for making a filled chewing gum product, comprising:

an extruder comprising;

an extruder head defining a chamber for receiving a molten gum composition and including a die defining a die orifice through which the molten gum composition is forced from the chamber under pressure so as to extrude a rope of gum from the die orifice;

a center filling mechanism having a filler tube extending through the die orifice; and

a feed passage extending through the extruder head and connecting with the filler tube for feeding a filling through the filler tube, such that the gum rope extruded through the die orifice is formed to have a channel filled with the filling;

a rope sizer structured and arranged to receive the gum rope from the extruder and to reduce the cross-sectional size of the gum rope and to shape the gum rope to have a non-round cross-sectional shape with a greater dimension in a width direction than in a height direction;

a cooling tunnel structured and arranged to receive the gum rope from the rope sizer and to cool the gum rope, the cooling tunnel comprising a series of individual belt conveyors each extending substantially horizontally and parallel to a machine direction along which the gum rope is advanced and spaced apart from one another in a vertical direction such that the belt conveyors substantially lie in a vertical plane, the belt conveyors including an uppermost belt conveyor and a lowermost belt conveyor each traveling in the machine direction and at least one intermediate belt conveyor, wherein each belt conveyor travels in a direction opposite to the immediately prior belt conveyor, and wherein the gum rope is threaded in a serpentine fashion through the cooling tunnel such that the gum rope is carried along one of the belt conveyors traveling in the machine direction and then along subsequent ones of the belt conveyors, finally exiting the cooling tunnel from the lowermost belt conveyor; and

a cutter structured and arranged to receive the gum rope from the cooling tunnel and to cut the gum rope into discrete gum pieces each having a cavity filled with the filling.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the gum rope coming from the rope sizer travels substantially parallel to the machine direction and has the width direction of the gum rope extending in a horizontal cross-machine direction perpendicular to the machine direction.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the belt conveyors are independently driven by individual drive motors.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the drive motors are variable-speed motors whose speeds are independently controllable.

12. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the cooling tunnel has a first entrance that leads onto the uppermost belt conveyor, and a second entrance that leads onto an intermediate belt conveyor, thereby allowing the cooling tunnel to be operated in either a first configuration wherein the gum rope enters through the first entrance or a second configuration wherein the gum rope enters through the second entrance.

13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the cooling tunnel has a first entrance that leads onto the uppermost belt conveyor, and a second entrance that leads onto the lowermost belt conveyor, thereby allowing the cooling tunnel to be operated in either a first configuration wherein the gum rope enters through the first entrance or a second configuration wherein the gum rope enters through the second entrance.

14. An apparatus for making a filled chewing gum product, comprising:

an extruder comprising;

an extruder head defining a chamber for receiving a molten gum composition and including a die defining a die orifice through which the molten gum composition is forced from the chamber under pressure so as to extrude a rope of gum from the die orifice;

a center filling mechanism having a liquid filler tube extending through the die orifice and a powder filler tube extending through the die orifice and spaced from the liquid filler tube; and

a liquid feed passage extending through the extruder head and connecting with the liquid filler tube for feeding a liquid filling through the liquid filler tube, and a powder feed passage extending through the extruder head and connecting with the powder filler tube for feeding a powder filling through the powder filler tube, such that the gum rope extruded through the die orifice is formed to have a first channel filled with the liquid filling and a second channel filled with the powder filling and separate from the first channel;

a rope sizer structured and arranged to receive the gum rope from the extruder and to reduce the cross-sectional size of the gum rope and to shape the gum rope to have a non-round cross-sectional shape with a greater dimension in a width direction along which the first and second channels are spaced than in a height direction;

a cooling tunnel structured and arranged to receive the gum rope from the rope sizer and to cool the gum rope; and

a cutter structured and arranged to receive the gum rope from the cooling tunnel and to cut the gum rope into discrete gum pieces each having a first cavity filled with the liquid filling and a second cavity filled with the powder filling.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, further comprising a final cooling device for cooling the gum pieces.

16. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the cutter comprises a chain die cutter.

17. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the gum rope coming from the rope sizer travels along a substantially horizontal machine direction and has the first and second channels of the gum rope spaced apart in a horizontal cross-machine direction perpendicular to the machine direction.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the cooling tunnel comprises a series of individual belt conveyors each extending substantially horizontally and parallel to the machine direction and spaced apart from one another in a vertical direction such that the belt conveyors substantially lie in a vertical plane, the belt conveyors including an uppermost belt conveyor and a lowermost belt conveyor each traveling in the machine direction and a plurality of intermediate belt conveyors, wherein each belt conveyor travels in a direction opposite to the immediately prior belt conveyor, and wherein the gum rope is threaded in a serpentine fashion through the cooling tunnel such that the gum rope is carried along one of the belt conveyors traveling in the machine direction and then along one or more subsequent ones of the belt conveyors, finally exiting the cooling tunnel from the lowermost belt conveyor.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the belt conveyors are independently driven by individual drive motors.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the drive motors are variable-speed motors whose speeds are independently controllable.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the belt conveyors are driven by the drive motors such that a ratio of the speed of the lowermost belt conveyor to the speed of the uppermost belt conveyor is greater than or equal to 1 and less than about 1.3.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the ratio of the speed of the lowermost belt conveyor to the speed of the uppermost belt conveyor is greater than or equal to 1 and less than about 1.1.

23. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the cooling tunnel has a first entrance that leads onto the uppermost belt conveyor, and a second entrance that leads onto an intermediate belt conveyor, thereby allowing the cooling tunnel to be operated in either a first configuration wherein the gum rope enters through the first entrance or a second configuration wherein the gum rope enters through the second entrance.

24. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the cooling tunnel has a first entrance that leads onto the uppermost belt conveyor, and a second entrance that leads onto the lowermost belt conveyor, thereby allowing the cooling tunnel to be operated in either a first configuration wherein the gum rope enters through the first entrance or a second configuration wherein the gum rope enters through the second entrance.

25. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the cooling tunnel further comprises blowers for blowing air across the gum rope.

26. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the center filling mechanism further comprises an air tube concentrically positioned within the liquid filler tube and coupled with an air supply such that air and liquid filling are discharged together for filling the first channel in the gum rope.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the liquid filler tube has a non-round cross-sectional shape.

28. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the center filling mechanism further comprises a rotating agitator positioned within the powder filler tube and coupled with a drive mechanism such that the agitator agitates the powder being fed through the powder filler tube.

29. A method for making filled chewing gum pieces, comprising the steps of:

extruding a molten gum rope having a longitudinally extending channel;

filling the channel with a filling;

sizing the gum rope to reduce the cross-sectional size of the gum rope and to shape the gum rope to have a non-round cross-sectional shape with a greater dimension in a width direction than in a height direction;

cooling the sized and shaped gum rope by longitudinally advancing the sized and shaped gum rope along a serpentine path through a cooling tunnel, the serpentine path lying substantially in a vertical plane such that the gum rope is substantially prevented from bending in a side-to-side fashion; and

cutting the cooled gum rope into discrete gum pieces.

31. The method of claim 29, wherein the gum rope is caused to travel the serpentine path by a series of vertically spaced, horizontal belt conveyors each traveling in a horizontal direction opposite to that of the immediately prior belt conveyor.

32. The method of claim 29, wherein the cutting step comprises cutting the gum rope with a chain die cutter.

33. The method of claim 29, further comprising the step of cooling the gum pieces.

34. The method of claim 33, further comprising the step of coating the cooled gum pieces with a hard coating.

30. (canceled)

35. A method for making filled chewing gum pieces, comprising the steps of:

extruding a molten gum rope having a longitudinally extending channel;

filling the channel with a filling;

advancing the gum rope horizontally through a series of pairs of sizing and shaping rollers structured and arranged to reduce the cross-sectional size of the gum rope and to shape the gum rope to have a non-round cross-sectional shape with a greater dimension in a horizontal width direction than in a vertical height direction;

cooling the sized and shaped gum rope; and

cutting the cooled gum rope into discrete gum pieces.

36. The method of claim 35, wherein the cooling step comprises carrying the gum rope along a serpentine path that lies substantially in a vertical plane such that the gum rope is substantially prevented from bending in a horizontal side-to-side fashion, and blowing air across the gum rope as the gum rope traverses the serpentine path.