Abstract: Filled and top-sealed cartons are fed in a line to a chamber supplied with dehumidified warm air and short rows, each of two or three cartons, are pushed consecutively and laterally at a grouping station by a vertical plate onto a carrier, which advances the rows in turn through a side-taping station. At the grouping station, a tape-gripping device draws off consecutively from a roll of non-adhesive tape predetermined lengths of the tape, which are gripped at their middle sections in turn and are cut off from the roll, the cut-off end zones falling down to respective opposite sides of the row. The cut-off lengths are advanced with the respective rows through the side-taping station, which has a pair of adhesive-tape-applying rolls at those respective opposite sides and at which respective side tapes are applied to adhere together the cartons of the row and the handle of the row.