Canadian Patents and Development Limited/societe Canadienne Des Brevets

Joseph R Chouinard

Richard R Cowmeadow

Apparatus for eviscerating fresh scallops immediately after they have been shucked from the shell, which apparatus cleanly strips membrane, roe and entrails from the edible adductor muscle without causing damage to the latter. No ageing, chemical or heat pretreatment is required. The apparatus includes a feed hopper which meters product flow single file onto one end of a set of two horizontal, counterrotating pinch rollers. A horizontal open bottom trough directs and contains the scallops on the top surfaces of the rollers. The rollers are critically sized and knurl textured and supported in rolling contact so as to nip and downwardly strip off soft entrails and membrane but support the firm cylindrical meat (muscle tissue). Water sprays and high speed cylindrical rotary brushes clean the rollers from below. The rollers have left and right hand helical grooves which advance the product along the rollers from the hopper to a discharge end while being processed. The knurl patterns of the rollers preferably have a plurality of longitudinal V-shaped grooves cut into them for about the first 6 to 10 inches of the rollers to damage the roe and liver which are then more readily caught in the nip between the rollers.

Growing community of inventors

Liverpool, Canada

Joseph R Chouinard