Filling station for pleat-sided bags

A filling station for filling pleat-sided bags, comprising means for transporting a bag in flat form to a filling position, said bag being of the type having a closed bottom, unpleated front and rear faces and pleated side faces joined thereto to define an openable mouth opposite to said bottom, a pair of elongated clamping beams extending across the exteriors of the nonpleated front and rear faces of the bag in directions substantially parallel to said nonpleated faces when said bag is in said filling position, a plurality of spreading members disposed adjacent each of the opposing nonpleated front and rear faces of said bag when said bag is in said filling position, said spreading members having claws movably mounted thereon and adapted to engage the opposing interior edges of said bag along the nonpleated faces of said bag adjacent to its said openable mouth, means for moving at least some of the claws on each side of said bag away from one another along paths substantially parallel to the directions of elongation of said clamping beams thereby to clamp the edges of said bag adjacent its openable mouth between said claws and said clamping beams at a plurality of spaced locations along the unpleated rear and front faces of the bag, means for moving the spreading members together with their associated clamping beams on opposite sides of said bag away from one another in directions transverse to the planes of the front and rear faces of the bag thereby to at least partially unfold the pleated side faces of said bag while opening the mouth of said bag, a filling funnel outside of said bag adjacent its said mouth for filling said bag via the mouth of said bag, means for moving said funnel into the opened mouth of said bag, further clamping means disposed adjacent the exterior of said bag, and means for moving said further clamping means into engagement with the exterior of said bag to clamp the faces of said bag to said filling funnel during the filling of said bag.