Food and beverage tray
AssigneeAmoco Corporation
InventorsJohn A. Finchum, Timothy K. Sheehan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A food and beverage tray for holding food and drink which is designed to be grasped in one hand of a user, wherein the user's thumb is placed on a thumb placement region on the upper surface of the tray and the user's remaining fingers grasp the tray along the bottom surface, which comprises a tray having a bottom comprising a beverage container recess and a continuous sidewall having a height which is lower adjacent to a beverage container recess located next to the thumb placement region.
Claims13
A food and beverage tray designed so that a user can simultaneously support the tray and a beverage container thereon comfortably with a single hand, said tray comprising a bottom having an upper bottom surface and an outer bottom surface opposite the upper surface;
- a food containing area;
- a beverage container recess formed in the bottom;
- at least one thumb placement surface next to the container recess;
- and a continuous sidewall radially connected to the bottom with a sidewall outer surface which transitions to the outer surface of the bottom and a continuous flange located on an upper end of the sidewall, said flange extending outwardly toward the outer perimeter of the tray from said continuous sidewall and away from said food containing area and said beverage container recess, and said continuous sidewall being downwardly angled in the region of said container recess so as to form said thumb placement surface, there being a difference in height between the height of the sidewall adjacent the beverage container recess and the height of the sidewall at the thumb placement surface, such that said height of the sidewall adjacent said beverage container recess is about 0.125 to about 0.50 inches greater than said height of the sidewall at the thumb placement surface, where said sidewall height is the distance from the top surface of said sidewall to said outer bottom surface.
A food and beverage tray designed so that a user can simultaneously support the tray and a beverage container thereon comfortably with a single hand, said tray comprising a bottom having an upper bottom surface and an outer bottom surface opposite the upper surface;
- a food containing area:
- a beverage container recess formed in the bottom;
- a thumb placement region on each side of the container recess;
- a continuous sidewall radially connected to the bottom with a sidewall outer surface which transitions to the outer surface of the bottom and a continuous flange located on an upper end of the sidewall and being downwardly angled in the region of said container recess such that said continuous sidewall has a height adjacent the container recess and thumb placement region which is lower than said height adjacent the food containing area, said sidewall height being defined as the vertical distance between said continuous flange of said sidewall and the plane occupied by said outer bottom surface of said food containing area whereby the tray is adapted to comfortably permit a user to grasp the tray with a thumb of one hand on the thumb placement region and with remaining fingers of the same hand on the outer surface of the bottom of the tray;
- said tray further comprising a stacking lug means on an outer surface of the sidewall;
- and a rib separating the container recess from a food containing area of the tray.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.