PINEAPPLE CHUNKING APPARATUS

Cored and peeled pineapples, split or halved axially into half spheroids, are fed through segmenting, slicing and usually also recoring operations in the form of a column of end-to-end half spheroids lying flat face down on supporting means having a longitudinal guiding rib slidably engaged by the aligned longitudinal grooves formed by the initial coring operation. Positive feeding of the half spheroids to and through the slicing and recoring operations is provided by a scroll feeder near the head of the column having lateral engagement with the leading half spheroids which have been segmented except for a small amount of unsegmented material immediately adjacent to the core hole, prior to reaching the scroll. The advancing head of the column leaving the scroll is sliced transversely at intervals which provide partially segmented slices of the desired thickness. The advancing head of the column is then recored producing the desired chunks by severing the segments from the ring of material adjacent to the core hole which held the pieces together through the slicing operation.