Patent ID: 6969535

Claim:
A method for pitting and slicing a fruit, including the steps of: (a) advancing a pitting knife and a coring knife into engagement with the fruit; (b) while translating the fruit along a segment of a circular first path, ejecting a pit from the fruit while the pitting knife is engaged with the fruit and retracting the coring knife away from the fruit; (c) after step (b), retracting the pitting knife with the pitted fruit impaled thereon, thereby moving the pitted fruit along an at least generally helical path to a point along an at least substantially circular second path parallel to but separated from the first path; and (d) after step (c), translating the pitted fruit along a segment of the second path past a set of spring-biased, pivotably mounted slicing knives in such a manner that the slicing knives engage with and slice the pitted fruit, wherein the slicing knives are spring-biased in a first orientation and have freedom to pivot away from the first orientation and then spring back into the first orientation.