Leprino Foods Company

William Charles Prewitt

Lester O Kielsmeier

Kevin Bradley Akins

James Michael Volk

Theodore Alan Bobkowski

James G Leprino

Chris Hildreth

Paul Joseph Oliveira

David Hendrickson

An apparatus for cutting a product includes a conveyor assembly and a slitter assembly. The conveyor assembly conveys the product in a feed direction and defines a conveyance surface, on which the product is conveyed. The slitter assembly slits the product into strips as the product is conveyed in the feed direction. The slitter assembly comprises a plurality of cutting elements arranged in a V shape and overlapping one another in the feed direction, as viewed in a direction substantially normal to the conveyance surface. A chopping assembly is positioned downstream of the slitter assembly. The chopping assembly comprises an elongated blade, which moves in an elliptical cutting motion, such that it has a component in the downward direction to sever the strips of product, and a component in the feed direction to toss the severed pieces of product in the feed direction.

Apparatus for dicing a deformable product

An apparatus for shredding a product includes a housing having an interior space bounded by a generally cylindrical sidewall that can include one or more contoured segments. The housing further includes a cutting implement, preferably also contoured, following the contoured segment, with an opening in the sidewall between the contoured segment and the cutting implement that follows it. Preferably, the contours of the cutting implement are different from the contours of the segment that the cutting implement follows. The apparatus further includes a feed hopper through which a product to be shred is fed to the interior space of the housing, an impeller, including at least one impeller paddle, mounted for rotation within the housing about a substantially horizontal axis of rotation, and a driving mechanism coupled to the impeller for rotating the impeller. The product is slid along the inner periphery of the housing by the impeller, at such a speed that centrifugal force keeps the outer face of the product pressed against the inner periphery. As the product passes by a cutting implement, a plurality of shreds are cut from the outer face of the product and discharged from the housing.

Apparatus for and method of shredding a product

Growing community of inventors

Berthoud, CO, United States of America

William Charles Prewitt