Abstract: A processing machine for washing, scrubbing, or peeling products, such as vegetables or fruit, comprises a plurality of elongated rotatable processing rollers (with brushes or abrading elements thereon) arranged to define a U-shaped trough through which the products pass for processing. A rotatable waste discharging auger is located below the trough. A rotatable product mobilizer apparatus, comprising a drive shaft, helical rods arranged around and supported on the drive shaft and located in the trough, and augers on the drive shaft at the opposite ends of the helical rods, operates to raise the product layer next to the processing rollers thereby creating a tumbling action, to positively move the products toward the discharge end of the processing rollers, and to control product load level in the trough as a function of the rotational speed of the product mobilizer apparatus.

Abstract: Apparatus for size-grading elongated objects of differing diameters, such as green beans or the like, comprises concentrically arranged inner and outer hollow rotatable slotted drums, with the outer drum having a greater number of axially extending circumferentially spaced apart slots therein than the inner drum; drive mechanisms for rotating both drums in the same direction but at different relative speeds, whereby the slots in the inner and outer drums overlap in different relationships and cooperate so as to define entry slots of different widths at different peripheral positions around the outer drum; an object feeding chute outside the outer drum for directing objects to be size-graded to an entry slot of desired width; a conveyor within the inner drum for receiving size-graded objects which have fallen through the selected entry slot, and a collector on the outside of the outer drum for collecting those objects which have not fallen through the selected entry slot.