Self-opening plastic bag pack system

A pack of self-opening bags for use with bagging racks which are adapted to support said pack of self-opening bags in a generally vertical orientation, comprising:

• a plurality of stacked bags, each bag having a front wall and a rear wall, and being surface treated on the outer surfaces of said front and rear walls;
• side walls joining said front and rear walls, said bags having a bottom edge which is closed and a partially opened top region;
• a pair of upwardly extending integral handles with a mouth region located between said integral handles;
• and
• central tab portions located on said front and rear walls in said mouth region of said bags, said central tab portions having a top edge and side edges, an aperture for receiving a retaining hook of a bagging rack, and a tearing cut which extends across said central tab portions, except for uncut portions adjacent said side edges of said central tab portion, said tearing cut being located below said aperture, said stack of bags being held together with frangible bonds formed adjacent to the tearing cut, said central tab portions of said stack of bags being permanently affixed together above said tearing cut;
• wherein said tearing cut passes through said stack of bags and follow a generally downwardly directed non-straight path, which permits the portion of the bags below the tearing cuts to sag downwardly, and thereby relieve stress on the frangible bonds along the tearing cut, such that when a frontmost lying bag of the pack of bags carried on the bagging rack is removed from the pack of bags, the pulling force applied to remove the frontmost lying bag will be first concentrated on said uncut portions adjacent said tearing cut so that the uncut areas are torn through before the frangible bonds bonding the rear wall of the frontmost lying bag to the front wall of the immediately rearwardly lying bag are broken, so that each successive frontwardly lying bag will pull open the immediately rearwardly lying bag in the bag pack.

A self-opening bag dispensing system comprising:

• a bagging rack for supporting a pack of self-opening bags in a generally vertical orientation and for readying for loading individual bags from said pack of self-opening bags, said bagging rack comprising;
• a rear portion with a bag engaging hook means located thereon;
• and
• bag handle engaging means affixed to said rear portion;
• and
• a pack of self-opening bags adapted for use with said bagging rack, comprising;
• a plurality of bags which are surface treated on their outer surface, aligned in a stack, each bag having a front wall and a rear wall;
• side walls joining said front and rear walls, each bag having a bottom edge which is closed and a partially opened top region;
• a pair of integral handles extending upwardly from said top region, with a mouth region located between said integral handles;
• and
• central tab portions located on said front and rear walls in said mouth region of each said bag, said central tab portions having a top edge and side edges, an aperture for receiving said bag engaging hook means, and a tearing cut which extends across said central tab portion and passes through said pack of bags in a generally downwardly directed path, except for uncut portions near said side edges of said central tab portions, said tearing cut being located below said aperture and allowing the portion of the pack of bags below said tearing cut to relax downwardly, wherein frangible pressure bonds are formed along both sides of said tearing cut which frangibly bond together adjacent walls of adjacent bags, and wherein the relaxation of the pack of bags below the tearing cut relieves stress on said frangible bonds, such that when a frontmost lying bag of the pack of self-opening bags carried on the bagging rack is removed from the pack of self-opening bags, the pulling force applied to remove the frontmost lying bag will be first concentrated on said uncut portions adjacent said tearing cut so that the uncut areas are torn through before the frangible bonds bonding the rear wall of the frontmost lying bag to the front wall of the immediately rearwardly lying bag are broken, so that as a bag of said pack is bags is removed from said bagging rack, the intact frangible bonds will cause an immediately adjacent bag of said pack of bags to be pulled opened for loading with merchandise.