Apparatus for making sealed packages for spreadable products.

Apparatus is described for making sealed packages containing spreadable products, particularly butter, margarine, peanut butter or jam. It includes means to transport a relatively stiff base carrying the food product in its centre, to feed a relatively thin flexible sheet material and means to cut the sheet into predetermined lengths and feed them to a rotatable vacuum drum. As the drum stations rotate past a tamper, each cut length is shaped into a predetermined 3-dimensional form. This is then transported by the drum over the stiff base, released, and cohesively joined along its outer edges to the base to enclose the product. The sheet piece edges are further pressed by a roller assembly. A final tamper then tamps the pleats shut. [The packages are described in FSTA (1983) 15 12F531.]