Patent ID: 8753703

Claim:
A continuous process for cooking bacon, comprising the steps of: continuously feeding bacon strips in three or more rows to an inlet of a spiral cooking oven; moving the bacon strips along a conveyor belt in a spiral path inside the spiral oven, wherein the conveyor belt comprises a woven wire material having at least an inner portion with openings and an outer portion with openings, wherein the inner portion is closer to a center of the spiral path than the outer portion, the openings in the inner portion being larger than the openings in the outer portion when the conveyor belt is straight, and wherein the openings in the inner portion and the openings in the outer portion have a similar effective areal size when the conveyor belt is in the spiral path; applying a cooking fluid into the spiral oven and through the spiral path; and cooking the bacon strips in the spiral oven to a mean yield percentage having a mean bandwidth variation not greater than 4.5%.