A food patty molding machine of the horizontally reciprocating mold plate type, using a plunger type food pump, has its food product storage hopper set off to one side, horizontally offset from the mold plate and its drive and also clear of the food pump plunger and its drive; the mold plate and plunger pump drives are also offset horizontally as well as vertically so that the pump feed path is an offset V and there is clear access to the mold plate, to the food pump plunger, and to their drives for both machine changeover and maintenance purposes. All machine operations are driven by fluid pressure drive motors to facilitate changes in the overall time of the machine cycle by varying only one operating interval, preferably the dwell of the machine occurring immediately after knock-out.