Abstract: Apparatus is described for shaping similar sized rectilinear portions of frozen food stuff comprising: a magazine for receiving accurately dimensioned planks of frozen food stuff, a device for dispensing planks from the magazine one at a time, guillotine blades for severing portions of equal size from the leading end of each displaced plank, and a placement device adapted to transfer each portion onto a lower tooling part of relatively displaceable two-part tooling. A drive mechanism is provided for forcibly lowering an upper tooling part towards the lower part so as to trap the portion in the cavity formed when the two tooling parts come together, to cause the portion to spread out within the cavity and adopt the internal shape thereof. The drive mechanism also raises the upper tooling part to leave the shaped portion on the lower tooling part.

Abstract: A system in which a succession of products (12) to (16) traverse a gap between two conveyors (10, 18), comprises a ring (32) carrying an array of one or more equi-spaced laser displacement transducers (36-42) connected to a computer (48). The ring is disposed perpendicular to the direction of product movement, such that each product (e.g. a log of food) passes through its central region, the ring being rotatable in a continuous or oscillatory manner. Signals received by the computer from the transducers are stored and computed to determine the shape and/or size of the product to enable the product to be cut into an optimum number of pieces. A method is described for determining volume and thereby weight using mean density values for the products, of irregularly shaped bulk product, particularly fresh meat.