Abstract: A method of and apparatus for separating and removing seeds from a juice/juice sac slurry. In one embodiment of the present invention, a juice/juice sac slurry is deposited onto the upper surface of an inclined, vibrating bed. The bed includes a plurality of ridges and valleys that form channels, and a plurality of pins and dams projecting upwardly from the bed. The high frequency vibrations imparted to the bed cause the juice sacs to travel up the bed to a point where they are collected while the seeds bounce off and tumble down the bed to another point where they are collected and discarded. Also disclosed and described are apparatuses for and methods of extracting fruit meat sections from a whole fruit, and an apparatus for and method of separating sectional membranes from the fruit meat section to produce the juice/juice sac slurry.

Abstract: A method of and apparatus for extracting the fruit meat section of a fruit, and subsequently separating and removing the sectional membranes and seeds from the fruit meat section to produce free juice and an abundance of unruptured juice sacs. In one embodiment of the present invention, whole fruits are fed into a dual turret extraction apparatus that includes a plurality of matched resilient cups for holding the fruit. After the fruit is cut in half, the halves are indexed through successive coring and reaming stations. The coring station includes a coring element that cleanly extracts a hemisperical section of fruit meat from the peel. The reaming station includes a reaming element that gently removes any fruit meat remaining within the peel. The fruit meat sections are then fed into rag separator apparatus that uses a rotating screen drum and a counterrotating shaft having striker bars projecting radially therefrom to strip the juice sacs from the sectional membranes.

Abstract: A stacker for rigid and semi-rigid sheet or pad-like products forming individual stacks thereof of specific count and with the edges of the product in each stack aligned. The stacker comprises at least one pair of multi-thread screws, being mirror images of each other, rotating continuously at the same speed but in opposite directions. Products are continuously fed between the screws of the at least one pair, each product being supported by a set of corresponding threads of both screws. All corresponding sets of threads are so loaded and each product is shifted downwardly by its respective thread set while simultaneously being urged forwardly against a stop to align the front and rear edges thereof. The initial portion of the shaft of each multi-thread screw tapers downwardly and outwardly to align the side edges of the products.