Squeezable bottle for aseptic filling with viscous food, packaged viscous product, preform and method of filling a squeezable bottle

Abstract

A semi-rigid bottle (10) for packaging viscous food, wherein the bottle (10) is made from a material that is suitable for aseptic processing, retorting and/or hot filling, is formstable, is squeezable and collapsible by a radially-inwardly directed crushing grip force, without the bottle (10) reassuming its initial shape after collapsing, and is blow molded. The bottle (10) comprises a wall (50) with at least one oxygen and light barrier and a neck portion (20) extending from the wall (50) and comprising a dispensing opening (40) at the top of the neck portion (20), threads (21), and a spout section (41) that extends from the top of the dispensing opening (40) to the threads (21) and that is free from any threads, wherein the dispensing opening (40) has an inner diameter in the range from 6 mm to 28 mm, and wherein the spout section (41) extends along a vertical distance in the range from 6 mm to 10 mm.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.