Blown bag-in-box composite container and method and apparatus for making the same

Abstract

An improved bag-in-box (BIB) composite container wherein the container's inner bag is blow-molded inside the container's outer box. In one embodiment of the present invention, the body portion a heated and softened preform preferably made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is placed within a carton through an aperture in the carton's top end panel, followed to injecting expansion means such as a pressurized gas into the preform to expand it into a bag within the outer box. In another particularly preferred embodiment, a parison is extruded into an outer carton through an aperture in the carton's top end panel, followed by injecting expansion means such as a pressurized gas into the parison to expand it into a bag within the outer box. Also disclosed and described are means to enable a consumer to readily grasp the BIB container and to view the product contained therein, as well as apparatus that are useful in making BIB composite containers of the present invention.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.