Filling device with housing having a directed gas supply

Filling device for filling containers with foods and closing said containers, comprising:

• an endless conveyor system with drive means, for conveying container holders along an imaginary looped conveyor track with bottom and top track sections that are connected to each other by means of bend sections;
• a container infeed mechanism, for supplying containers to the container holders, each of said containers having filling aperture;
• workstations for carrying out operations on containers conveyed along, including a filling station and a closing station;
• a container discharge mechanism, for removing containers from the container holders;
• at least one processing line provided along the conveyor track, for containers to be processed;
• a housing that at least partially encloses the processing line;
• and
• gas supply means, for feeding conditioned gases into the housing through a flow distribution part;
• the workstations being disposed along the conveyor track, wherein
• the housing extends at least along the filling station and the closing station, along said housing said flow distribution part also extending at least along the filling and closing stations, wherein the gas supply means are designed for, during operation, making the gases flow from said flow distribution part to substantially close to the container filling apertures along outsides of containers being conveyed along said housing, in the direction of bottoms of said containers,
• said flow distribution part of said gas supply means comprising a plurality of adjacent gas outflow apertures opening into said housing extending at least along the filling and closing stations;
• and
• for substantially all conveyance positions of a containers along the housing extending at least along the filling and closing station, said gas flow distribution part having said gas outflow apertures being situated at a distance of less than 25 centimetres from the apertures of the corresponding containers.