General Mills, Inc.

James M Olive

James N Weinstein

Peter A Huberg

Laurie Burgess

Thomas Leuhrs

Jennifer M Mcaab

Michael P Waldherr

Steven A Stein

William C Bornhorst

Thomas Luehrs

Lloyd J Zoubek

Niclas M Scher

Jenny Maack Mcaab

Apparatus and methods for fabricating food items include extruding a first hot plastic food mass through multiple passages and co-extruding a second hot plastic food mass through a feed stem received in each of the multiple passages and through nozzles. Each nozzle includes a first portion in communication with the feed stem but not the passage and a second portion in communication with the passage but not the feed stem. The nozzles are rotatable in gearing relation with the drive gear of a servomotor. The co-extruded ropes are conveyed at a linear speed rate less than or equal to the discharge speed from the nozzles, cooled, and cut into individual pieces in the form of peelably separable strands.

Apparatus and methods for fabricating food items

Apparatus and methods for fabricating food items include extruding a first hot plastic food mass through multiple passages () and co-extruding a second hot plastic food mass through a feed stem () received in each of the multiple passages () and through nozzles (). Each nozzle () includes a first portion () in communication with the feed stem () but not the passage () and a second portion () in communication with the passage () but not the feed stem (). The nozzles () are rotatable in gearing relation with the drive gear () of a servomotor (). The co-extruded ropes are conveyed at a linear speed rate less than or equal to the discharge speed from the nozzles (), cooled, and cut into individual pieces in the form of peelably separable strands.

An apparatus (,) for forming open ended, cone-shaped snack products includes a rotary cutter (,) having opposed, counterrotating rollers (,) each formed by multiple cutting discs (,) axially spaced on a mandrel (,) by spacers (,). A dough sheet formed by a sheet forming device (,) is conveyed to a slitting device (,) which slits the dough sheet into multiple pairs of dough strips. The dough strips are conveyed on a conveyer (,) towards the rotary cutter (,). The first dough strips of each pair pass over the end of the conveyor (,), and twisted 90&deg; as they pass over sheaves (,) and pass between stationary guides (,) to the first roller (,) while the second dough strips of each pair pass over the end of the conveyor (,), are twisted 90&deg; as they pass over sheaves (,) and pass between the stationary guides (,) to a second roller (,). The pair of dough strips are drawn under tension through the nip of the rollers (,) in a face to face stacked orientation. The snack products are cut and shaped by cavities (,) in the cutting discs (

Dough forming apparatus and methods

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Saint Paul, MN, United States of America

James M Olive