Patent ID: 8910457

Claim:
An apparatus for cutting slices of a food product and loading them on successive moving trays, comprising: a slicing machine for cutting slices from a plurality of pieces of food product arranged in parallel, said slicing machine being arranged in a stationary position and having an outlet outputting rows of slices, each row of slices comprising a plural number of slices arranged on single layer; and a loading unit including: a set of individually actuated array-forming conveyor belts arranged in parallel, each of said array-forming conveyor belts being actuated in a forward movement direction synchronously with the operation of said slicing machine and sized in width to receive rows of slices cut at once by the slicing machine arranged in a direction transverse to said forward movement direction; movement means for jointly moving said set of array-forming conveyor belts in a direction transverse to said forward movement direction for successively locating one empty array-forming conveyor belt of said set of array-forming conveyor belts in alignment with said outlet of said slicing machine for successively receiving one partial array of slices formed by a plural number of parallel rows of slices cut at once by the slicing machine on each array-forming conveyor belt; transfer means associated to the set of array-forming conveyor belts for transferring a complete array of slices formed by said partial arrays received on the set of array-forming conveyor belts from the array-forming conveyor belts to one moving tray of said successive moving trays, each of said moving trays having a permeable support surface to support the slices; and a tray conveyor arranged for moving a plurality of the successive moving trays in coordination with said transfer means, wherein each row of slices in the complete array of slices comprises a number of slices which is a multiple of the number of slices in a row of slices cut at once by the slicing machine.