Continuous coating of pellets

A process for continuously coating pellets comprising:

• feeding pellets continuously into an elongated trough at a first location along the length of the trough, and thereby maintaining a bed of pellets continuously moving longitudinally in the trough;
• directing a spray of liquefied pellet coating material toward the bed of pellets in the trough at least at one intermediate location along the length of the trough;
• vibrating the trough and thereby simultaneously substantially fluidizing the bed of pellets disposed therein and causing the pellets in said bed to move in a circulating path transverse to the direction of elongation of the trough as they move longitudinally in the trough, so that substantially all of the pellets are exposed to the spray at times during their travel along the trough;
• and
• collecting coated pellets discharged over a weir in the trough at a discharge location longitudinally spaced from the first location, the at least one intermediate location at which the spray is directed toward the bed of pellets being between the first location and the discharge location.