Thermally insulated container and method for making same

Abstract

A first aspect the present invention provides a thermally insulated container comprising a lid and a main body moulded from a single piece of expanded foam with outwardly tapering inner walls, necessitated by the moulding process. The container is arranged to be closed by the lid so that cool packs in the container extend from a base inside the main body to inside the lid, wherein the inner surface of the walls of the lid are tapered such that positioning the lid on the main body, with the cool packs arranged around the inner surfaces of the walls, causes the cool packs to be aligned so that they extend vertically, perpendicular to an inner surface of the base of the main body. This permits regular rectangular cool packs to be used to assist assembly and to provide a regular parallel sided space inside of the cool packs, in which a product to be shipped may be housed. According to a second aspect of the invention there is provided a method of moulding such a container, wherein the provision or absence of an insert on the mould tool permits the container to have, or not to have, provision to accommodate an insulation panel layer, without altering the inner or outer dimensions of the container formed by the method.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.