Abstract: An apparatus and method for case packing flexible product-containing bags is described. Rows of flexible product-containing bags are fed onto a tongue assembly. The tongue assembly has a flat plate which guides the bags into a carton, a movable lip which supports the bags from below and means for moving the lip from a bag-supporting position to a non-supporting position. The tongue assembly containing the bags is inserted into the carton and the movable lip is moved into a non-supporting position, allowing the bags to drop into the carton. The flat plate is also used to partially compress bags which have already been deposited in the carton.

Abstract: Cookie preforms are fed to a bakery oven in a manner which maximizes oven space and conveyor belt utilization by extruding a plurality of parallel ribbons of cookie dough extrudate onto a first conveyor belt, cutting the ribbons in a staggered pattern to form individual cookie preforms and feeding the preforms onto a second conveyor belt moving at a speed at least twice that of the first conveyor belt in order to separate successive preforms by at least the length of a cookie preform.