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US 6,546,697 B2Granted
Method and apparatus for packaging tamales
AssigneeHormel Foods Corporation
InventorsGary A. Handel, Jeffrey J. Morrison
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A tamale loading apparatus (10) includes a converging mechanism (61) and diverter wheels (83, 84) to position tamales (200) on a belt (24). The belt is run at a speed to fly the tamales (200) into a can (300) wherein the tamales are automatically loaded and it is no longer necessary to load the tamales (200) by hand into the cans (300).
Claims10
A method of loading a continuous stream of frangible objects into a food container, comprising:
- a) placing a frangible object on a moving conveyor belt, the conveyor belt having a loading end;
- b) indexing the food container to a receiving position, the container in alignment with the frangible object and positioned at the loading end;
- c) moving the conveyor at a speed sufficient to fly the frangible object off of the conveyor into the food container;
- d) flying the object into the food container, the object flying at a trajectory witch is similar for the object and successive objects;
- and
- e) indexing the food container away from the conveyor.
3 more elements
A method of loading a soft frangible tamale into a container, comprising:
- a) placing a tamale on a moving conveyor belt, the conveyor belt having a loading end;
- b) indexing the container to a receiving position, the container in alignment with the tamale and positioned at the loading end;
- c) moving the conveyor at a speed sufficient to fly the tamale off of the conveyor into the container;
- d) flying the tamale into the container;
- and
- e) indexing the container away from the conveyor.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.