Rotary cutter and food block slicing apparatus

Abstract

To suppress occurrence of stacking defective products of sliced products in a slicing apparatus that cuts a food block such as ham or bacon into sliced products having desired thickness and weight.SOLUTION: A rotary cutter for slicing a food block of a food containing a fat component includes a recess into which the fat component enters in at least a range that comes into contact with the food during slicing near a cutting edge of a surface facing a cut surface of a sliced product to be sliced. There is also provided a slicing apparatus including the rotary cutter.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present invention relates to a rotary cutter for cutting food logs such as ham, and a food log slicing device equipped with this rotary cutter. [Background technology]

[0002] A slicing device that cuts food logs such as ham and bacon into slices of a desired thickness has already been proposed (Patent Document 1). This slicing device is equipped with a disk-shaped rotary cutter, the surface of the cutting edge of which is opposite the food log to be sliced, being inclined in the direction in which the sliced ​​product falls, and this rotary cutter rotates around the central axis of the disk and revolves around a center of revolution located at a position offset from the central axis of the disk, allowing for continuous slicing.

[0003] In addition, this slicing device slices food logs, which are fed to a rotary cutter at a speed corresponding to the thickness of the slices to be obtained, into slices of the desired thickness or weight one by one as the rotary cutter rotates and revolves around its axis.The sliced ​​products are then placed on a conveyor so that a number of slices corresponding to the set weight are stacked at approximately the same overlapping pitch to form a stack, and this stack is then sent to a packing device while maintaining its state on the conveyor, where the packed products are obtained. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0004] [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Publication No. 2023-22395 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0005] However, in conventional slicing machines, some slices may end up misaligned with other slices when stacked on the conveyor. If a defective stack including such misaligned slices is sent to the packing machine, the stacked state will be poorly packed, resulting in not only a loss of raw materials such as ham, but also in the disposal cost of packaging materials.

[0006] Therefore, a slicing device has already been proposed that has a function of detecting defective stacks with a sensor and removing them before the packing device. That is, by removing defective overlapping products that occur before packaging, it is possible to prevent defective products from being packed with defective products, thereby preventing loss of packaging material and reducing processing costs. However, in the above-mentioned slicing device, the removed defective stacked products do not become products, so the reduction in raw material loss is still not achieved.

[0007] The inventors of the present invention conducted extensive research into ways to eliminate defective stacked slices, and came to the conclusion that the reason some slices are stacked out of alignment with other slices is that when the food log is sliced ​​with a cutter, a thin layer of oil and grease from the food log remains on the cutting edge and near the cutting edge, creating frictional resistance between this remaining oil and grease and the sliced ​​surface of the sliced ​​product, which causes the sliced ​​product to become misaligned, leading to the completion of the present invention.

[0008] The present invention aims to provide a cutter that prevents sliced ​​products from being displaced due to oil and grease adhering to the cutting edge or the vicinity of the cutting edge, and a slicing device that is equipped with this cutter and that prevents a decrease in yield due to the occurrence of defective overlapping of sliced ​​products and improves maintenance work. [Means for solving the problem]

[0009] In order to solve the above problem, the rotary cutter of the present invention is a rotary cutter that slices raw food logs containing oil and fat while rotating, and is characterized by having a recess near the cutting edge into which the oil and fat can enter, at least in the area that comes into contact with the food when slicing.

[0010] Although there is no particular limitation on the rotary cutter of the present invention, it is preferable that the recessed portion is provided at least on the surface facing the cut surface of the sliced ​​product. In other words, since the frictional resistance with the surface facing the sliced ​​product cut from the log contributes significantly to the positional deviation of the sliced ​​product, it is efficient to provide the cutter on the surface facing the cut surface of the sliced ​​product.

[0011] As long as the object of the present invention can be achieved, the recesses may be, for example, groove-shaped, dot-shaped, or a combination of these. Furthermore, if the recesses are groove-shaped, the number of recesses may be one or more, they may be curved, and their depth may vary. On the other hand, if the recesses are dot-shaped, recesses of different depths may be provided, the formation density of the recesses may be changed depending on the distance from the center of rotation, and the dots may be uniform or may vary in size. The recesses can be obtained, for example, by cutting using an existing rotary cutter.

[0012] The shape of the rotary cutter of the present invention is not particularly limited as long as it can rotate and slice the log, but examples include disk-shaped, semicircular, and roughly comma-shaped cutters.

[0013] The food log slicing device of the present invention is characterized by being equipped with the rotary cutter of the present invention. As mentioned above, the rotary cutter of the present invention can be obtained by cutting an existing rotary cutter, so the rotary cutter of the present invention can be used in any slicing device that uses an existing rotary cutter. [Effects of the Invention]

[0014] The rotary cutter of the present invention is a rotary cutter that slices a raw log of food containing oil and fat while rotating, and has a recessed portion near the cutting edge into which the oil and fat can enter, at least in the area that comes into contact with the food during slicing. As a result, the oil and fat adhering to the cutting edge enters the recessed portion, reducing the area over which the adhering oil and fat come into contact with the sliced ​​product and the cut surface of the raw log.

[0015] This reduces the frictional resistance between the slicing surface of the sliced ​​product and the cutter when slicing a raw food log such as ham, thereby preventing the sliced ​​product from shifting out of position. Furthermore, since the slicing device of the present invention uses the rotary cutter of the present invention, it is possible to reduce the product defect rate, and also to reduce the frequency of cleaning the cutter in order to reduce the defect rate, thereby reducing maintenance work. [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0016] [Figure 1] FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of a cutting edge portion of the rotary cutter of the present invention. [Figure 2] 1 is a food log slicing device according to the present invention; [Figure 3] FIG. 10 is a cross-sectional view of a cutting edge portion of a conventional cutter. [Figure 4] 10A and 10B show another embodiment of the rotary cutter of the present invention. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0017] Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings, but the present invention is not limited to the following examples.

[0018] 1 and 4 show one embodiment of the rotary cutter of the present invention, and FIG. 2 shows one embodiment of a slicing device equipped with this rotary cutter.

[0019] (Rotary cutter) As shown in Figure 1, this rotary cutter 1A is disk-shaped, and has a continuous groove-like recess 4A in the circumferential direction on the surface 3A facing the cut surface of the sliced ​​product S when slicing a food log W (hereinafter referred to as the "slice product side surface") in the area that comes into contact with the food when slicing.

[0020] (Food log slicing device) As shown in Figure 2, this slicing device 101 shows the overall configuration of a slicing device according to this embodiment that slices food logs W to a predetermined width. The slicing device 101 slices the food logs W and then stacks the slices to produce sliced ​​products S. The slicing device 101 is comprised of a log transfer station 102 for transferring food logs, which is installed on a base 1010, a slicing station 103 for slicing the food logs W, and an alignment station 104 for aligning the sliced ​​products S. The rotary cutter 1A is included in the slicing station.

[0021] As described above, the rotary cutter 1A has the recess 4A on the sliced ​​product side surface 3A, so that the area of ​​the part that becomes the sliced ​​product S when slicing comes into contact with the oil and grease on the sliced ​​product side surface 3A of the rotary cutter 1A is small, and therefore the sliced ​​product S is not cut off at a position deviated from the normal position due to friction with the rotary cutter 1A.

[0022] That is, current slicing devices use, for example, a disk-shaped rotary cutter 10 as shown in FIG. This rotary cutter 10 does not have a recess, and the sliced ​​product side surface 13 has a first inclined surface 131 extending from the outer edge t0 of the cutting edge portion at an inclination angle θ1 relative to the rotational trajectory of the cutting edge, a second inclined surface 132 extending from the edge t1 of the first inclined surface 131 at an inclination angle θ2 relative to the rotational trajectory of the cutting edge, and a third inclined surface 133 extending from the edge t3 of the second inclined surface 132 at an inclination angle θ3 relative to the rotational trajectory of the cutting edge, with θ3<θ2<θ1.

[0023] In the case of a conventional rotary cutter 10 that does not have such recesses, the oils and fats contained in the food logs adhere to the cutting edge of the cutter and are carried away toward the cutting edge by the centrifugal force generated by rotation, but some of the oil remains in a thin layer on almost the entire surface of the sides of the sliced ​​product and the sides of the food logs that come into contact with the food when slicing.

[0024] If oil and fat are attached to almost the entire surface that comes into contact with the food during slicing, depending on the distribution of the fat on the cut surface, frictional resistance with the sliced ​​product S may increase in some areas, causing part of the sliced ​​product S to shift from the overlapping position that will become the finished product, resulting in a defective product.

[0025] However, in the rotary cutter 1A of the present invention shown in Figure 1, the oil and grease enter the recessed portion 4A, reducing the contact area between the sliced ​​product and the oil and grease, thereby eliminating displacement of the sliced ​​product due to frictional resistance of the oil and grease.

[0026] Furthermore, as described above, the slicing device 101 is designed to slice food logs using the rotary cutter 1A of the present invention, which reduces the positional deviation of sliced ​​products due to frictional resistance from oil and fat, thereby improving product yield and eliminating the need to frequently clean the cutter to prevent defective products, thereby reducing maintenance work.

[0027] Figure 4 shows a second embodiment of the rotary cutter of the present invention. This rotary cutter 1B is similar to the rotary cutter 1A of Figure 1 except that it has a roughly bead shape. However, only the outer peripheral portion corresponding to the recess 4B functions as a cutter; the other outer peripheral portion does not function as a cutter. The center of rotation is indicated by O. [Explanation of symbols]

[0028] 1A, 1B Rotary cutter of the present invention 2A, 12 log side 3A, 13 sliced ​​product side 131 1st slope 132 Second slope 133 Third slope 4A, 4B recess 10 Conventional rotary cutter 101 Food log slicing device of the present invention 102 Log Transfer Station 103 Slice Station 104 Alignment Station 1010 Base O Cutter rotation center S sliced ​​product W Food Log t0 cutting edge t1 Edge of the first inclined surface t2 Edge of the second inclined surface θ1: Inclination angle of the first inclined surface 131 with respect to the rotation trajectory of the cutting edge θ2: Inclination angle of the second inclined surface 132 with respect to the rotation trajectory of the cutting edge θ3: Inclination angle of the third inclined surface 133 with respect to the rotation trajectory of the cutting edge

Claims

1. A rotary cutter that slices raw food logs containing oil and fat while rotating, A rotary cutter characterized in that a recess is provided near the cutting edge, at least in the area that comes into contact with the food when slicing, into which the oil and grease can enter.

2. 2. The rotary cutter according to claim 1, wherein the recess is provided at least on a surface facing the cutting surface of the product to be sliced.

3. A food log slicing device comprising the rotary cutter according to claim 1 or 2.

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