Patent ID: 7752828

Claim:
An apparatus that loads horizontally oriented slugs of edible, edge-standing items into trays, the apparatus comprising: a tray delivery mechanism having a tray infeed for receiving trays, a tray outfeed from which filled trays can be removed from the apparatus and a tray conveyor that moves the trays from the tray infeed to the tray outfeed; and an over head transfer mechanism disposed above the tray conveyor, the over head transfer mechanism including a pusher flight and a retainer flight, the pusher flight and retainer flight configured to cooperate to transfer a pre-selected number of edge-standing items forming the slug from a counting conveyor to a tray loading area, the overhead transfer mechanism including a flight adjustment system that adjusts a distance between the retainer flight and the pusher flight to change the pre-selected number of edge-standing items transferred by the over head transfer mechanism from the counting conveyor to the tray loading area, wherein the flight adjustment system comprises a first drive system linked to the retainer flight; and a second drive system linked to the pusher flight, the first and second drive systems configured for movement independent of each other to enable movement of the retainer flight and the pusher flight relative to each other; a control system, the control system operates during flight adjustment to actuate the first drive system to move the retainer flight in a first direction and to actuate the second drive system to move the pusher flight in a second direction opposite the first direction to establish a selected distance between the retainer flight and the pusher flight, and subsequent to flight adjustment and during a loading operation the control system operates to actuate the first drive system and the second drive system to move the retainer flight and the pusher flight together in the same direction such that the selected distance between the retainer flight and the pusher flight is maintained.