Importance

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Abstract

Apparatus is described for shaping similar sized rectilinear portions of frozen food stuff comprising: a magazine for receiving accurately dimensioned planks of frozen food stuff, a device for dispensing planks from the magazine one at a time, guillotine blades for severing portions of equal size from the leading end of each displaced plank, and a placement device adapted to transfer each portion onto a lower tooling part of relatively displaceable two-part tooling. A drive mechanism is provided for forcibly lowering an upper tooling part towards the lower part so as to trap the portion in the cavity formed when the two tooling parts come together, to cause the portion to spread out within the cavity and adopt the internal shape thereof. The drive mechanism also raises the upper tooling part to leave the shaped portion on the lower tooling part. The advance of placement device to position the next portion to be shaped on the tooling serves to push the previously shaped portion ahead of it beyond the tooling and onto a portion transfer and collection device. In accordance with the invention the guillotine blades are adjustable to alter the size of the portions, so that the volume of each portion bears a fixed relationship to the volume of the tooling cavity. For undamaged shaping the portion volume should be not greater than, and preferably just less than the cavity volume.

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First Claim