| 摘要 |
A conventional refrigeration vault has cooling coils and air-moving fans for freezing confections that are conveyed therethrough. An endless conveyor belt describes a tortuous path through the vault and carries the confections in a spaced single-file arrangement. One wall of the refrigeration vault has openings therein, and one reach of the endless conveyor belt extends through the openings to pass by a discharge point, at which finished (hard frozen) confections are removed, as well as a pickup point at which soft frozen confections having a predetermined shape are received. The soft frozen confections are introduced through one of the openings into the refrigeration vault and travel along the tortuous path for a relatively short distance (as compared with the total length of the conveyor within the vault). The confections then emerge from the vault through a wall opening on a stick insertion conveyor reach at which time they have a frozen outer shell obtained during the time required to travel the relatively short distance through the refrigeration vault. A conventional stick inserter is positioned adjacent the stick insertion conveyor reach and operates to sequentially insert sticks into each of the confections through the frozen shells thereof. Distortion of the predetermined shape of each confection is resisted by the rigidity of the frozen shell as the stick is inserted, and the stick is supported in place within the still soft inner part of the confection. The confection with the stick inserted into the body thereof is reintroduced, through a wall opening, into the refrigeration vault where it transits the remainder of the tortuous conveyor path emerging once again on the conveyor reach which directs it to the discharge point as a completely frozen confection of predetermined shape containing a stick insert.
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