Patent ID: 8678886

Claim:
A food-product loader for accepting a load of elongate pieces of food product in a heaping mass and thereafter loading such pieces onto a moving conveyor in a pattern such that most of the individual pieces are spaced apart from one another; said loader comprising: a hard-walled cabinet formed with a bulk hopper that has an introduction inlet end and transitions into a plurality of chutes, each of which chutes terminates in a lower portion that tapers inwardly to form a rigid-walled funnel portion; each rigid-walled funnel portion defining an outlet port; a plurality of soft-sided sleeves or funnels for mating with each outlet port of each of the plurality of chutes; each soft-sided sleeve or funnel terminating in an ultimate dispensing port at an elevation above the food-carrying run of the moving conveyor; and flanking massaging elements to massage spaced sides of the soft-sided sleeves or funnels for massaging or teasing out one piece of food product at a time.