A high capacity food processing system, including for an elongated strand
of food product such as hot dogs, sausage links, etc., has first and
second loading stations with serial accumulators enabling intermittent
stopping of the loading operation, which is a necessary and normal part
of use, without disrupting a downstream thermal process, and enabling
differential conveyor velocities through the loading stations, including
a loading velocity for loading food product on the conveyor, a bypass
velocity during intermittent non-loaded conveyor segments, and a
transport velocity through the processing station, wherein the transport
velocity is less than the bypass velocity and greater than the loading
velocity, and where the transport velocity remains constant and the same
during both of the loading and bypass velocities of the conveyor at the
loading stations and also remains constant and the same during stopped
movement of the conveyor at the loading stations.
