Abstract: An assembly for a seafood cleaning machines provides increased efficiency and decreases loss of meat of cleaned seafood items, such as shrimp, prawns, and the like. The assembly has a plurality of parallel rollers, a plurality of secondary rollers spaced between and mounted slightly above the power rollers, and a plurality of insert rollers fitted between adjacent power rollers and secondary rollers. Each insert roller has a variable diameter outside surface, gradually increasing from an upstream portion to the downstream portion. Smaller diameter upstream portion forms a tighter channel between the rollers and help the rollers to grab even smaller portions of the inedible parts of the crustaceans. To remove peeled off inedible portions, the assembly provides for a two-level water spraying, from above and below the insert rollers, thereby preventing a build-up of debris on the rollers and decreasing a possibility of over-peeling.

Abstract: An assembly for a seafood cleaning machines provides increased efficiency and decreases loss of meat of cleaned seafood items, such as shrimp, prawns, and the like. The assembly has a plurality of parallel rollers, a plurality of secondary rollers spaced between and mounted slightly above the power rollers, and a plurality of insert rollers fitted between adjacent power rollers and secondary rollers. Each insert roller has a variable diameter outside surface, gradually increasing from an upstream portion to the downstream portion. Smaller diameter upstream portion forms a tighter channel between the rollers and help the rollers to grab even smaller portions of the inedible parts of the crustaceans. To remove peeled off inedible portions, the assembly provides for a two-level water spraying, from above and below the insert rollers, thereby preventing a build-up of debris on the rollers and decreasing a possibility of over-peeling.

Abstract: A vacuum packed, frozen, cooked or non-cooked shrimp pack, in which the shrimp-containing plastic pouch has a center thickness less than its outer, surrounding periphery, with more shrimp contained one above the other at the peripheral edges in comparison to a lesser number at the center in the pack. This produces a relatively even heating or cooking of the shrimp when the frozen pack is placed in a micro-wave for defrosting or cooking. Such a pack can be produced by providing an upwardly curved, rigid form underneath the bottom film layer of the pack in the "form, fill and seal" machine during commercial packing of the product in the sealing station and, if so desired, in the forming and fill stations. The rigid form can be provided by a curvi-linear section (FIG. 4) or a hemispherical section (FIGS.

Abstract: A specially designed roller for shrimp peeling machines which includes a gapped portion along its length, for example at its upper end, to effectively shorten the effective peeling section of the machine without substantial modification of the basic machine itself by allowing the shrimp to fall through the gapped portion rather than traversing the full length of the roller. Heretofore, separate, different machines were necessary to achieve the highly desired advantages of the present invention. The special, gapped rollers are substituted for the standard peeling rollers which provide peeling action along their full length, when an effectively shorter peeling section is desired. Several different gapped rollers are disclosed, some reversible end-for-end and others forming a series of subsequently related rollers which have a varying location of the gap portion along the roller length.