In its international patent filing, the food and beverage major said the tablet could form two or more layers - a creamer or whitening component, a flavoring, and a biscuit component. The beverage, it said, could be made using hot or cold water.
“This tablet offers an instant product formulation in a convenient format for the preparation of three layered beverages requiring no skill and no cooking appliances and eliminates the use of multiple sachets in order to make up multiple different components,” Kraft Heinz said in the filing.
“…On addition of water in one single, simple step, a beverage with three distinct layers is formed.”
It said the beverage tablet was compact, easy to carry and took up less space than a sachet.
Sip and spoon
Kraft Heinz said the ‘biscuit component’ referred to a dry bakery product, preferably flour-based. It could be a whole biscuit, cookie, wafer or cracker, it said, or “in the form of compressed crumbs or fragments”.
Importantly, the biscuit component had to be semi-dissolvable to form a ‘spoon-able’ layer once in contact with water.
“Semi-dissolvable means that the biscuit will form a suspension in the beverage medium and does not dissolve per se, but disperses,” it wrote.
“Preferably the layer will have a consistency similar to cake, such as cake in a trifle. Alternatively, the biscuit component may retain a crunchy texture in at least portions when forming a suspended layer in a beverage.”
It said the layer differentiation was visually pleasing to the consumer but also gave a different textural experience when consumed.
“It is noted that the layers are distinct in at least their appearance, preferably their appearance and/or flavor, but desirably also in their texture properties.”
Visual flavors
The flavor layer – sandwiched between the foam and biscuit – could host a variety of tastes, from soluble coffee or chocolate to vanilla, cinnamon or strawberry, Kraft Heinz said.
However, the important aspect was that the flavoring layer remained distinct from the others, it explained. To do so, the food major said a coloring agent could be mixed through if desired.
Source: Google Patents – Publication No: US 2016/0128348
Published: May 12, 2016. Filed: June 17, 2015.
Title: “Layered Beverage”
Authors: Kraft Foods R&D [now Kraft Heinz] – T. Massey et al.