Patent ID: 8087869

Claim:
A method of loading food cartons for blast freezing, comprising the steps of: a) stacking multiple loaded pallets in multiple rows, multiple loaded pallets wherein each of the pallets is loaded with multiple layers of the food cartons to be frozen by blast freezing, each of the loaded pallets including multiple layers, wherein each of the layers having multiple food cartons; b) providing a first vacuum assist lifting device having multiple suction cups; c) using the first vacuum assist lifting device to lift one of the layers of cartons from a first pallet from a first row of pallets of step “a”, one layer at a time, wherein one or more suction cups of the first vacuum assist lifting device engage the layer of the cartons; d) after step “c”, placing the first layer on a second pallet of the first row of pallets of step “a” to be blast frozen; e) after step “d”, placing a divider on the first layer of the second pallet of the first row of pallets of step “a”; f) after step “e”, sequentially transferring each of the layers from the first pallet of the first row of pallets of step “a” to the second pallet of the first row of pallets of step “a”; and g) placing a divider in between each pair of the layers in step “f” h) after step “g”, moving the first vacuum assist lifting device from the first row of pallets of step “a” to a second row of pallets of step “a”, and using the first vacuum assist lifting device to lift the layer of the cartons from a first pallet of the second row of pallets of step “a” to a second pallet of the second row of pallets of step “a”, one layer at a time, wherein one or more suction cups of the first vacuum assist lifting device engage the layer of the cartons.