초록 ▼

An energy saving food serving system for rethermalization of the food and for delivery prepared meals to locations remote from the place of preparation, such as to patients to hospitals and nursing homes. The system includes a mobile cart having its own rechargeable power pack that is utilized to pr

An energy saving food serving system for rethermalization of the food and for delivery prepared meals to locations remote from the place of preparation, such as to patients to hospitals and nursing homes. The system includes a mobile cart having its own rechargeable power pack that is utilized to propel the cart. The cart has separate bays, each having a tier of racks for carrying individual food serving trays. Each tray has one or more thermally isolated heat transfer devices which are selectably energized when the tray is in place on a rack in the cart. Preferably, each tray has a pair of heaters referred to herein as plate and bowl heaters and adapted to be operated by control means in either a continuous mode of operation or a rethermalization mode of operation. In the rethermalization mode of operation to manually selected heaters associated with trays in all bays are operated for a predetermined period of time of, for example, 25 minutes, to rethermalize the food from a frozen or at least cold state to a temperature on the order of 170°F.-180°F. Thereafter, the heaters in predetermined bays are operated cyclically to hold the food at the desired temperature range. During the initial predetermined period of the rethermalization mode the heaters may be operated on a continuous “on”basis or may be operated cyclically but preferably at a higher duty cycle and in the maintaining state which follows the predetermined period.

대표청구항 ▼

A mobile food serving system for rethermalizing food and maintaining food temperature after rethermalization, said system comprising; mobile housing means having at least one tray supporting rack, an electrical energy source carried by and movable with the housing means, a tray removably supported o

A mobile food serving system for rethermalizing food and maintaining food temperature after rethermalization, said system comprising; mobile housing means having at least one tray supporting rack, an electrical energy source carried by and movable with the housing means, a tray removably supported on the rack and having a supporting surface for food containers, at least one food heater associated with the supporting surface and in thermal contact with a surface of the tray for good heat transfer thereto, selectable means in series with said heater for enabling coupling of energy source power to the heater, and control means coupled from the energy source for controlling food heating and temperature, said control means including manual mode control switch means having opposite mutually-exclusive single positions including a normal position associated with a normal heating period of the food, and a rethermalization position associated with a rethermalization period, means responsive to the normal operation position for coupling operating power to the food heater at a continuous rate with the switch means set at and maintained at said single normal position throughout said normal operation position, and first means responsive to the rethermalization position and including first timing means for coupling operating power to the food at a continuous rate for a predetermined interval of sufficient length to rethermalize the food at a first temperature range and second means responsive to termination of the predetermined interval for thereafter operating the heater at a lower power level to maintain the food heated to a second temperature range lower than the first temperature range, said switch means being set at and maintained at said single rethermalization position throughout both portions of said rethermalization period.