A mechanism and method is provided for controllably loading multiple food loaves into the slicing station of a continuous slicing machine. The parallel loaves that are engaged by a common loaf feed drive or side-by-side, independent loaf feed drives are engaged by the loaf feed drive or drives simultaneously such that the interface or seam between a preceding loaf and a trailing loaf in different loaf feed paths are located substantially at the same location during slicing of two side-by-side loaf streams. A clamp device is provided that clamps multiple food loaves when loaded to move along the parallel food loaf paths together, wherein the clamp device can be released once the multiple food loaves are simultaneously engaged by the loaf feed drive.