A sausage cutting device

Sausage cutting apparatus 10 comprises plastics base plate 36 defining a flat support base for a sausage rope to be cut, first and second cutting assemblies 38, 42 including cutting devices 40, a drive system 68 for displacing the cutting devices, and guide rails 72 for guiding the displacement. The cutting assemblies 38, 42 are at opposite sides of a feed path for the sausage rope and each includes a continuous flexible toothed belt 46 to which the cutting devices 40 are connected. The carrier belts 46 are mounted on the guide rails, which project upwardly from the support base and include arcuate guide surfaces (74, figure 11) along which the carrier belts are slidingly displaced, defining sequentially convergent and divergent cutter paths along which associated cutting devices are displaced inwardly for severing the sausage rope and thereafter away from one another for releasing severed sausage portions. The cutting devices 40 may include blades 48 defining cutting surfaces which mesh with a slight interference fit, and the guide rails 72 may include, in sequence, blade approach, blade meshing, blade departure and blade return segments (see figure 12). The cutting devices may be releasably attached to the carrier belts.