Sealed Air Corporation, New Zealand

Cryovac Australia Pty. Ltd.

David Stevens

John Koke

Jacob Brinkman

Ron Whitehead

A vacuum packaging machine and a conveyor to deliver a product package from an upstream station to a position adjacent a vacuum chamber. The conveyor has a longitudinal direction defined by the direction of travel of the product package. The vacuum chamber has a heat sealing and cutting assembly oriented transversely to the longitudinal direction of the conveyor and in a position with sufficient spacing between end walls of the vacuum chamber and the assembly for the product package containing two or more products to be loaded into the vacuum chamber with at least one product located in front of the heat sealing and cutting assembly and at least one other product located behind the heat sealing and cutting assembly. The heat sealing and cutting assembly seals and cuts between two products to form two separate evacuated packages.

Vacuum packaging machine for product packages with multiple products

A vacuum packaging machine includes a plurality of vacuum chambers () each arranged to receive at least one unsealed product package and operable to perform an independent vacuum sealing operation, each vacuum chamber having a longitudinal direction defined by a direction of travel of the respective product package through the chamber (), each chamber having a heat seal assembly () therein which extends transversely to the longitudinal direction. An infeed conveyor () can be provided with a telescoping portion () which can extend over the heat seal assembly or a part thereof. Each vacuum chamber can have a respective bed () and independently moveable hood (), and the beds () can be synchronously vertically moveable. The vacuum packaging machine can be used in combination with a suitable product bagging or wrapping machine.

Vacuum packaging machine having a plurality of vacuum chambers for performing a vacuum sealing operation on product packages

A sealing assembly () for sealing flexible packaging materials comprising: a sealing mechanism for sealing the packaging material; and a spreading mechanism for spreading the packaging material to be sealed prior to sealing, the spreading mechanism including at least two pair of opposed spreading members (), each pair having opposing converging contact edges () which engage either side of the packaging material during spreading; wherein the spreading members are mounted for relative movement between a first open orientation and a second closed orientation such that, as the spreading members travel from said first to said second orientation, the contact edges initially contact the packaging material at convergent ends of the contact edges and then proceed to contact the packaging material along the length of the contact edges to divergent ends thereof, and wherein subsequently or simultaneously the spreading members engage the packaging material between the contact edges and travel transversely relative to the packaging material to spread the packaging material.

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Port Melbourne, Australia

David Stevens