Wood, Graham

The invention relates to a method for operating a production system and the production system, for the manufacture of a plurality of frozen foodstuff items. The system includes apparatus for the supply of one or more materials, combining apparatus to combine at least some of said materials to form the said items, apparatus for use in the freezing and hardening of the items and one or more packaging apparatus located downstream of the freezing and hardening apparatus. Control means are provided such that should the combining apparatus or apparatus downstream of the combining apparatus stop operating, an indicator signal is generated and passed to the control means which processes and generates a control signal for at least the combining apparatus so as to at least reduce the throughput of items leaving said combining apparatus for a period of time and hence prevent build up of items and possible wastage of the same.

The invention relates to the provision of apparatus for use in forming a foodstuff and particularly a frozen confectionery and means for locating accurately a member such as a chocolate bar into position into an ice cream portion in a reliable and efficient manner whilst maintaining the quality of the chocolate member. The apparatus includes a source of the said members and movement means to move the members to a manipulator which then serves to move the chocolate member into a required position for insertion into said foodstuff item when the presence of the foodstuff item is detected.

A fusion machine (10) which can be top-loaded on very large polyolefin pipes and pipelines has jaws which consist of an upper half jaw (63/163) and lower left and right (65/165) complemental jaws which pivot on the half jaw. Left and right actuators (110) connected between the complemental jaws and the half jaw (61) operate in one direction to cause the complemental jaws to rotate to an opened condition in which the upper half jaw (61) can be lowered onto and lifted from the pipes to be fused and in the other direction to cause the complemental jaws to rotate to a closed condition in which the pipes to be fused are gripped so substantially around their circumferences as to resist their deformation from round during manipulation by the machine (10). The top-loading machine minimizes the need for heavy equipment to load and unload pipe to and from the fusion machine (10).

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