Dip Filling & Sealing Machine

No two dips flow the same way. In one week a co-packer might run a watery tzatziki, a stiff labneh, an oil-separating pesto and a two-phase cottage cheese. Four variables decide how hard each is to dose accurately: viscosity (how cleanly the product moves and breaks at the nozzle), particulates (cucumber shreds, onion pieces, herb leaf, curd), oil separation (a free oil phase that floats in the hopper and skews shot weight), and entrained air (whipped dips that compress under piston pressure and dose light).

A servo-driven volumetric piston answers all four because the fill profile is programmable rather than mechanical. Speed, dwell and suck-back are set per recipe at the HMI, so a stiff spread is drawn slowly and pushed gently while a thin dip is cut off sharply to stop stringing. Nozzle bore, piston size and valve style suit the product, and every cup holds ±0.5% of target across the 50 g to 500 g range.

• Tzatziki filling machine setup: low viscosity with shredded cucumber that keeps releasing moisture. Wide-bore nozzle so shreds pass without bridging, plus a positive cut-off so the thin phase does not drip onto the rim.
• Baba ganoush: fibrous roasted eggplant and variable batch-to-batch body. Gentle hopper agitation keeps the mix uniform and a generously sized piston stops fibres wedging at the valve.
• Labneh: very thick and tacky. Slow draw so the piston does not cavitate, plus a short suck-back so the tail breaks clean instead of trailing across the seal land.
• Pesto: separates on standing and carries basil leaf and nut fragments. Recirculation keeps the oil bound so shot weight stays honest, and a wide nozzle passes the particulates. See the pesto filling machine page.
• Sour cream: shear-sensitive and thins permanently if over-pumped. The piston moves it as a plug rather than shearing it, protecting body and reducing weeping in the cup.
• Cottage cheese: two phases in one shot. A large-bore path avoids crushing curd, with dosing tuned to hold the curd-to-cream ratio steady cup to cup.
• French onion: smooth base with discrete onion pieces. Particulate-friendly tooling keeps piece count consistent, or split base and inclusion across two stations.
• Spinach dip: stringy leaf that bridges small openings. A wide nozzle and clean shear at cut-off prevent tails and rim contamination.
• Nut butter cup filling machine setup: dense, oily and abrasive, with a strong tendency to string. Piston sized for the viscosity, aggressive cut-off, and a strict tree-nut protocol at changeover.
• Cream cheese spreads: stiff and highly temperature-dependent, so fill temperature belongs in the recipe. A brief settle and a level cut-off keep the surface presentable. More on the cream cheese filling page.

Up to three filler stations run in one pass, so a base, a drizzle and a garnish land in the same rotation: hummus with an olive oil swirl and paprika, or a French onion base finished with chives. Chunky tomato products follow the same logic on our salsa filling machine page.

Oxygen is the limiting factor for almost every fresh dip. It feeds aerobic moulds and yeasts on dairy-based products, drives oxidative rancidity in oil-rich formulations such as pesto, tahini and nut butters, browns cut avocado in guacamole, and fades the colour and fresh herb notes that sell a clean-label dip in the first place. A cup sealed on plain air traps a headspace of roughly 21% oxygen directly against the product surface.

The optional modified atmosphere (MAP) system on the SDH-R flushes that headspace with food-grade nitrogen in-line, in the moment between filling and sealing, so the membrane closes over an inert atmosphere instead of air. In practice this moves fresh dips from around 7 to 10 days of refrigerated shelf life to 30 to 45+ days. That is the difference between a local delivery radius and a national retail programme with realistic DC and shelf turns.

Those figures are achievable, not automatic. What you actually realise depends on:

• Film and cup barrier: the oxygen transmission rate of your membrane and cup, since a low-barrier structure lets oxygen back in over weeks.
• Cold chain: uninterrupted refrigeration from filler to shelf. Nitrogen flushing does not rescue temperature abuse.
• Incoming microbial load: starting counts from raw materials and prep, and how old the batch is before it reaches the filler.
• Formulation: pH, water activity, salt, acidification and any permitted preservative system.
• Headspace control: flush settings, cup fill level and how consistently residual oxygen is held run to run.

Treat MAP as a complement to hygiene and your HACCP plan, never a substitute for either. Any date claim you print should come from your own validated shelf-life and challenge studies, on your product, your film and your cold chain. Our notes on salsa, sauce and guacamole cup filling cover browning-prone products in more depth.

The SDH-R fills 50 g to 500 g into standard 4, 8, 10 and 16 oz cups, with custom tooling available from 2 oz through 32 oz. That range covers the whole fresh dip and spread category:

• 2 to 4 oz: single-serve snack packs, foodservice portion cups, sampling and multipack components.
• 8 to 10 oz: the core retail dip set, where most grocery hummus, tzatziki, salsa and French onion SKUs sit.
• 16 oz: value and club sizes, plus deli-counter programmes.
• Up to 32 oz: foodservice and bulk packs for restaurants, caterers and further processors.

Throughput is up to 30 cups per minute on a dry cycle, with real-world output typically 18 to 25 CPM depending on product viscosity, fill weight and cup size. Systems start from $45,000 USD. What moves that number is configuration rather than negotiation: how many of the three filler stations you need, whether you add MAP nitrogen flushing, whether you take pre-cut lid or snap-on lid stations, and how many cup sizes you tool from day one. Buying change parts for a format you will not run for two years is the most common way to overspend on a fresh dip packaging machine.

Every machine is built in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, carries CE, FDA and UL compliance and a 12-month warranty, and is supported from service centres in Alberta, New Jersey and California. Standard delivery is 8 to 12 weeks, so a machine ordered this quarter is producing next quarter. The 44 x 52 in footprint fits most existing refrigerated production rooms without moving walls, which keeps installation cost down and avoids a facility project on top of an equipment purchase.

Send your product, cup and film specification with a target cups-per-minute to our team for a quote, or review the full technical detail on the SDH-R product page.