Tahini Filling Machine
Dose dense sesame paste at up to 30 cups per minute. The SDH-R tahini filling machine keeps recirculated product uniform, controls stringing at cut-off and seals a clean, tamper-evident flange.
The SDH-R is a fully automatic tahini filling machine built for pure sesame paste — dense, high-viscosity product that separates into a hard settled bottom and a free oil layer whenever it stands. Hopper recirculation and a controlled servo draw speed keep the paste homogeneous, so every shot weighs honestly at ±0.5%, from 50g single-serves to 500g tubs, at up to 30 cups per minute. Programmable suck-back cuts the string at the nozzle and protects the sealing flange. Designed and built in Calgary, Alberta by Alter Pack; CE, FDA and UL certified. Request pricing.
Why the SDH-R Excels at Tahini
Recirculation Beats Sesame Separation
Tahini splits into a packed bottom and a free oil layer within hours of standing. Continuous recirculation and a matched draw speed re-homogenise the paste, so declared net weight stays honest from the first cup to the last.
Servo Suck-Back Kills the String
Sesame paste strings badly at cut-off. A programmable servo suck-back retracts the piston at the end of each shot, snapping the tail cleanly so nothing drapes onto the sealing flange, the cup wall or the index table.
Clean Flange, Reliable Tamper Seal
Oil on the sealing flange stops the weld bonding. Controlled dosing, correct nozzle height and independently set seal temperature, pressure and dwell deliver a repeatable tamper-evident membrane seal on every cup you ship.
Validated Changeover for Sesame Allergen
Sesame is a declared major allergen in the US and Canada. Tool-free strip-down, CIP clean-in-place and food-grade 304 stainless surfaces make a documented, swab-verified changeover between tahini and non-sesame recipes practical rather than a shift-long teardown.
What Makes a Tahini Filling Machine Different From a Dip Filler
Pure sesame paste is one of the hardest products in the chilled case to dose accurately. Tahini is dense and high-viscosity, it thins under shear and stiffens again at rest, and it famously separates on standing into a packed, near-solid bottom and a loose oil layer on top. A tahini filling machine that simply draws from a static hopper will fill the first cups mostly with oil and the last cups mostly with paste — and every one of them will be off weight.
Four problems to engineer out
- Separation. The hopper has to recirculate and the draw speed has to match the paste, or the piston cavitates and the shot weight lies to you.
- Stringing. Tahini pulls a long tail at cut-off. Without servo suck-back, that tail lands on the flange, the cup wall or the machine itself.
- Oil on the flange. Sesame oil on the sealing rim stops the film wetting out and bonding, and a weak weld is a returned pallet.
- Allergen control. Sesame is a declared major allergen in both the United States and Canada, so changeover has to be documented and verifiable, not improvised.
None of that is exotic engineering, but it has to be designed in rather than bolted on. A general-purpose cup filler sized for yogurt will move tahini happily for an hour, then quietly start under-filling as the hopper stratifies.
The SDH-R is configured around those four constraints. It is a fully automatic rotary machine that denests the cup, fills, optionally nitrogen-flushes, heat-seals and caps in one index at up to 30 cups per minute. If you also run chickpea and cultured-dairy SKUs, the same chassis covers our hummus filling machine build and the labneh and tahini filling application.
Automatic Tahini Filling Machine: Servo Dosing, Recirculation & Suck-Back
The SDH-R doses with a servo-driven volumetric piston, which is the right architecture for sesame paste. A pump smears and warms it; an auger belongs on powders. A piston displaces a fixed, mechanically defined volume, and the servo lets you profile that movement rather than simply trigger it.
Draw speed is the whole game
With a product this dense, drawing too quickly pulls a vacuum behind the piston and the cylinder never fills completely — the cup looks right and the checkweigher disagrees. The servo lets you slow the draw stroke, hold, then discharge faster, so the cylinder is genuinely full on every cycle. That is how an automatic tahini filling machine holds ±0.5% fill-weight accuracy from 50g single-serve cups up to 500g tubs.
Suck-back and a clean cut-off
At the end of each shot the servo retracts a programmed volume, snapping the string at the nozzle instead of letting it drape across the rim. Tuned together with nozzle height and index timing, this keeps the sealing flange dry — the single biggest cause of failed welds on sesame paste filling machine installations. Nozzle bore is chosen for the paste as well: too narrow and back-pressure climbs, the servo fights the product, and the tail gets worse rather than better.
Keeping the batch honest
- Hopper recirculation, so settled solids and free oil stay combined between draws.
- Stored PLC recipes per SKU, so draw speed, dwell and suck-back volume are recalled rather than re-guessed each shift.
- Real-world output of roughly 18-25 cups per minute on dense paste, against the 30 CPM dry-cycle rating.
- Up to three filler stations, useful for a tahini base with a swirl or a topping deposited in the same pass.
Full drive and wetted-path detail is set out on the SDH-R product page.
Tahini Packaging Machine: Tamper-Evident Sealing & MAP Nitrogen
Sesame oil oxidises. Rancidity, not microbiology, is usually what ends the useful life of a tahini cup, and it accelerates with headspace oxygen, warmth and light. That makes the sealing station the most important part of any tahini packaging machine, and the reason MAP is worth specifying up front rather than retrofitting later.
Seal integrity on an oily rim
The SDH-R sets seal temperature, pressure and dwell as three independent parameters. An oily product needs a different combination from a wet one like salsa — often slightly higher pressure and a longer dwell to displace the oil film and let the lidding lacquer bond. Because each parameter lives in the stored recipe, the setting proven in validation is the setting the night shift actually runs. It also pays to keep oil off the rim in the first place, which is why dosing, nozzle height and suck-back are treated as part of the sealing problem rather than a separate filling problem.
Lidding formats
- Roll-film membrane seal — the standard tamper-evident closure, die-cut in station and printed with your artwork.
- Pre-cut lids — for formats or artwork where roll film is not the right answer.
- Snap-on lid over the membrane — a resealable two-barrier pack for retail tahini that a household reopens many times.
MAP nitrogen flush
The optional nitrogen flush purges headspace immediately before the film welds down, replacing oxygen with an inert blanket. For refrigerated sesame products that typically moves shelf life from about 7-10 days to 30-45 days or more, holds the pale colour and delays the sharp, bitter note of oxidised sesame oil. The same station serves the wider dip filling and sealing machine family, so seal validation carries across your hummus, labneh and tahini SKUs.
Tahini Cup Filling Machine: Allergen Changeover, Cleaning, Price & Lead Time
Sesame is a declared major allergen in the United States, added under the FASTER Act, and a priority allergen in Canada. A plant running tahini therefore has to prove its changeover, not merely perform it. The SDH-R is built for that: every product-contact surface is food-grade 304 stainless steel, the piston, cylinder, manifold and nozzles strip down without tools, and CIP clean-in-place covers the circuit you cannot reach by hand. Keep the stripped parts on a dedicated rack and the whole routine becomes a written SOP an operator can follow and a QA lead can audit.
A practical changeover routine
- Recover residual paste, then strip the wetted path tool-free.
- Run CIP through the circuit; hand-clean nozzles, hopper and denester rails.
- Swab or ATP-test against your allergen programme and record the result.
- Recall the next SKU on the HMI — format and recipe changeover runs under roughly 15 minutes once the machine is clean.
Cups, weights and footprint
Standard 4, 8, 10 and 16oz cups, custom tooling from 2 to 32oz, in round, square or rectangular formats, fed by a pneumatic cup denester. Fill range is 50g to 500g, which covers a 2oz food-service tahini portion and a 16oz retail tub on the same frame. The machine occupies 44 x 52 in of floor space.
Price, delivery and support
A tahini cup filling machine starts from $45,000 USD, depending on filler stations, MAP, lidding and tooling, with typical delivery in 8-12 weeks. Every SDH-R is designed and built in Calgary, Alberta by Alter Pack, is CE, FDA and UL certified, ships with a 12-month warranty and is supported from service centres in Alberta, New Jersey and California. Send us your paste, cup and target weight for a configured quote.
Certified, Food-Grade Engineering Behind Every Tahini Filling Machine
CE, FDA & UL Certified
Every SDH-R ships with CE (European conformity), FDA (US food-contact) and UL (electrical safety) documentation - the paperwork your auditor, insurer and electrical authority ask to see.
Food-Grade 304 Stainless Steel
All product-contact surfaces are food-grade 304 stainless with CIP clean-in-place and tool-free strip-down, built for HACCP and BRCGS-audited facilities.
Servo-Driven Precision
A closed-loop servo volumetric piston holds +/-0.5% fill-weight accuracy across the full 50-500 g range, protecting net-content compliance and cutting product give-away.
Made in Calgary by Alter Pack
Designed and built in Calgary, Alberta, Canada by Alter Pack, with a 12-month warranty and North American service centres in Alberta, New Jersey and California.
SDH-R Tahini Filling Machine - Full Specifications
Complete specification for the SDH-R automatic rotary cup filling, sealing and cupping machine.
| Specification | SDH-R |
|---|---|
| Throughput | Up to 30 cups per minute (dry cycle) |
| Real-world output | 18-25 cups/min depending on product, cup size & options |
| Fill range | 50 g - 500 g (2 oz - 17 oz) |
| Fill-weight accuracy | +/-0.5% (servo-driven volumetric piston) |
| Standard cup sizes | 4 oz, 8 oz, 10 oz, 16 oz |
| Custom cup sizes | 2 oz - 32 oz with matching tooling |
| Cup shapes | Round, square, rectangular |
| Sealing | Roll-film membrane heat seal (tamper-evident) |
| Lidding options | Pre-cut lid | snap-on lid (pick-and-place) |
| Shelf-life option | MAP nitrogen flush - 7-10 days to 30-45+ days refrigerated |
| Filler stations | Up to 3 (base + drizzle + garnish in one pass) |
| Construction | Food-grade 304 stainless steel |
| Cleaning | CIP clean-in-place + tool-free strip-down |
| Controls | PLC + HMI with recipe storage & diagnostics |
| Changeover | Under ~15 minutes between SKUs |
| Certifications | CE, FDA, UL |
| Footprint | 44 x 52 in (1,100.5 x 1,315.5 mm) |
| Height | 65.6 in |
| Origin | Made in Calgary, Alberta, Canada by Alter Pack |
| Warranty | 12 months |
| Delivery | 8-12 weeks from order confirmation |
| Starting price | From $45,000 USD |
The SDH-R Tahini Filling Machine
Products It Fills
Available In These Markets
How the SDH-R Fills & Seals Tahini
Fully automatic from empty cup to sealed, retail-ready product - no manual labour
Cup Denesting
Empty cups are automatically separated from a nested stack and placed into the rotary table carriers. The pneumatic denester handles round, square, and rectangular cups from 2oz to 32oz.
Servo-Driven Filling
The volumetric piston filler draws a precise dose and dispenses it into the cup. Servo control adjusts stroke length and speed per recipe, maintaining plus/minus 0.5% fill-weight accuracy. The PLC stores recipes for quick changeovers.
Membrane Heat Sealing
Roll-stock film is drawn across the filled cup and heat-sealed to create a tamper-evident, airtight membrane. Sealing temperature, pressure, and dwell time are individually controlled to match your film and cup materials.
Snap-On Lid (Optional)
A pick-and-place mechanism applies a consumer-friendly snap-on lid over the membrane seal - a two-barrier system providing tamper evidence and reclosability for grocery retail and foodservice.
MAP Nitrogen Flush (Optional)
Modified Atmosphere Packaging replaces headspace oxygen with food-grade nitrogen immediately before sealing, typically extending refrigerated shelf life from 7-10 days to 30-45+ days.
Tahini Filling Machine - Frequently Asked Questions
The SDH-R starts from $45,000 USD. Where you land above that depends on the number of filler stations, whether you add MAP nitrogen for sesame oil, your lidding format and the cup tooling you need. Typical delivery is 8-12 weeks from order, with a 12-month warranty and CE, FDA and UL certification included.
The rated dry-cycle speed is up to 30 cups per minute. On pure tahini, plan on 18-25 cups per minute in production: high-viscosity paste needs a slower servo draw stroke so the cylinder fills completely, and fill weight, cup size and MAP dwell all influence the index. We model your real figure before quoting.
Two things together. Hopper recirculation keeps settled solids and the free oil layer combined between draws, and the servo lets you slow the draw stroke so the piston never cavitates on dense paste. With both set correctly the SDH-R holds ±0.5% fill-weight accuracy across the run, not just at start-up.
Yes, because the limiting factor is oxidative rancidity of the sesame oil rather than spoilage organisms. Flushing the headspace with nitrogen immediately before the membrane seals typically takes refrigerated shelf life from around 7-10 days to 30-45 days or more, while protecting the pale colour and the clean, nutty flavour.
Strip the wetted path tool-free, run CIP clean-in-place through the circuit, hand-clean the nozzles, hopper and denester rails, then swab or ATP-test to your allergen programme and record it. All contact surfaces are food-grade 304 stainless steel. Once clean, recalling the next recipe on the HMI takes under roughly 15 minutes.
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