Food article loading system and method

A food article loading system, comprising:

• a housing;
• a shuttle conveyor having a first belt with a first plurality of paddles for receiving individual food articles, the first belt having an upper pass and a lower pass, the shuttle conveyor mounted on the housing for relative longitudinal, reciprocal movement;
• an upper drive engaging the upper pass of the shuttle conveyor;
• a lower drive engaging the lower pass of the shuttle conveyor;
• a loading head having a second belt with a second plurality of paddles for receiving the food articles from the lower pass of the shuttle conveyor, the second belt having an upper pass and a lower pass;
• and
• a control for actuating each of the upper drive and the lower drive to operate at a selected speed, thereby causing the first belt to rotate about a circular path and the shuttle conveyor to reciprocate longitudinally to receive and retain a first predetermined number of the food articles, and to deposit a second predetermined number of the food articles onto the second belt at a selected frequency;
• wherein the loading head includes a front guide at a food article receiving end and a rear guide, the front guide having a larger radius of curvature than a radius of curvature of the rear guide, and the second belt of the loading head extends around the front guide and the rear guide such that a spacing between adjacent ones of the paddles of the second belt splay outwardly at a point where the second belt first engages the front guide to receive the food articles from the lower pass of the first belt of the shuttle conveyor.