Custard Filling Machine for Custard Cups, Pots and Flan

What a Custard Filling Machine Has to Get Right

A custard filling machine doses a cooked egg-and-milk dessert into pre-formed cups or pots, then closes them so the product can be chilled, shipped and sold refrigerated. That sounds simple until you watch custard on a real line. Its viscosity swings with a few degrees of temperature, an egg- or starch-set gel thins out when sheared hard, the surface skins over as soon as it meets air, and one drip on the cup flange becomes a leaking seal a week later in a retailer's chiller.

Our SDH-R automatic rotary cup filling, sealing and lidding machine is built for this kind of product: a pumpable, refrigerated dairy fill that needs gentle, accurate dosing and a clean, tamper-evident seal in the same pass. It runs up to 30 cups per minute on a dry cycle (18–25 in real production), fills 50–500 g per cup at ±0.5% accuracy, and adds a caramel layer and a topping on up to three filling stations.

Pourable or Thick Custard: Piston vs Peristaltic Filling

Custard is not one viscosity. A pouring custard behaves almost like heavy cream, while a set vanilla custard pot is closer to a thick spread. The filler on a custard filling machine should follow the product.

Servo-driven volumetric piston (standard)

The standard SDH-R filler is a servo-driven volumetric piston filler. It draws a fixed volume and pushes it through the nozzle, so the dose does not depend on how freely the custard flows. That holds ±0.5% accuracy on thick custard, and because the servo controls the stroke, the dispense can run smoothly rather than as a hard slug, which protects a set gel from losing body. A cut-off nozzle gives a clean break on thick custard; a suck-back nozzle pulls the last drop back so thinner custard does not tail onto the flange.

Peristaltic pump (optional)

For genuinely pourable products such as a thin custard sauce, liquid caramel or fruit coulis, an optional peristaltic pump is often cleaner. The product touches only the tubing, there are no valves in the product path, and liquids dose without splashing. Many custard lines use both: the piston for the custard body and a peristaltic pump for the sauce.

Flan Cup Filling Machine Setup: Caramel First, Custard Second

Flan and crème caramel show why a multi-component custard filling machine pays off. The caramel must sit at the bottom of the cup as a distinct layer, and the custard must go in on top without stirring it up. On the SDH-R this happens in one pass: a dedicated caramel filler doses first, the custard filler doses on top, and the cup indexes on to sealing. We confirm the station arrangement for your flan during quoting.

Handling the caramel layer

Caramel is dense and sticky, and its viscosity climbs steeply as it cools. A thinner caramel sauce suits a peristaltic pump; a heavier caramel usually goes through a servo piston. Caramel that strings across the rim sits under the sealing film and prevents a proper bond, so this layer gets a suck-back nozzle and a clean cut-off.

Pouring custard over caramel

Because caramel is denser than custard, a controlled custard dose settles on top rather than mixing in, as long as the dispense spreads over the caramel instead of punching through it. The third station stays free for a top garnish. Our guide to multi-component filling for layered products covers the same principles.

Egg and Milk Allergens, Hygienic Design and CIP

Traditional custard carries two major allergens: egg and milk. Both are on the US FALCPA list, which grew to nine when sesame was added on January 1, 2023 under the FASTER Act, and both are priority allergens in Canada, where plants operate under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations enforced by CFIA. If the same line also runs egg-free custard, a wheat-based crumble or a nut garnish, changeover cleaning becomes an allergen control under FDA FSMA Preventive Controls (21 CFR Part 117), and BRCGS and SQF auditors will expect a validated procedure.

The SDH-R is not itself certified to HACCP, BRCGS or SQF; it is designed to support plants that operate under them:

• Food-grade 304 stainless steel with FDA-compliant food-contact materials; CE marked and UL listed.
• Optional CIP (clean-in-place) system for the product path.
• Tool-free strip-down so nozzles and change parts can be removed for inspection and washing.
• HMI recipe storage, so each custard SKU restarts with its own saved settings.
• Mechanical changeover under about 15 minutes; allergen wash-down time depends on your sanitation procedure.

Custard is ready-to-eat and filled after the cook step, so the filler sits inside your post-cook hygiene zone, and your HACCP plan should treat the product path and sealing station accordingly.

Is the SDH-R the Right Custard Filling Machine for Your Plant?

The SDH-R suits fresh, refrigerated custard from small and mid-sized dessert and dairy producers and co-packers running several SKUs on one compact machine. It is not right for every custard operation:

• Shelf-stable custard. Ambient custard is made on aseptic or retort systems; the SDH-R is neither.
• Bake-in-pot processes. If custard or flan is baked or steamed in the cup after filling, discuss the process flow with us; the SDH-R fits best when custard is cooked, then filled and sealed.
• Frozen custard. Frozen desserts are outside its scope.
• High single-SKU volume. Above 30 cups per minute on one product, an inline cup filling machine is usually the better investment.
• Very small portions. Fills below 50 g are outside the standard range.

For broader ranges, see our pudding cup filling machine page for chocolate, vanilla and rice pudding, and our dessert cup filling machine page for mousse, cheesecake and layered desserts. The same SDH-R runs them with different tooling and fillers.