Motorised food cutters and manual food cutters are known.

Manual food cutters include handheld fruit skin peelers and these can be used to provide continuous swarfs of skin or fruit flesh. However, this is a time-consuming, manual procedure requiring concentration.

Motorised or otherwise automated devices have also been proposed. These suffer from general inefficiency, complexity of design and other drawbacks.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION It is the object of the present invention to overcome or substantially ameliorate at least one of the above disadvantages and/or more generally to provide an improved motorised solid food piece cutter.

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION There is disclosed herein a cutter for solid food pieces, comprising: an rotational elongate food piece impaler, a cutting blade, an advance mechanism for moving the cutting blade towards the impaler, and a motor or motors configured to rotate the impaler and activate the advance mechanism such that the blade is moved thereby toward the impaler whilst cutting a length of edible ribbon from a food piece impaled upon the impaler in use.

Preferably, the cutting blade comprises one or more strip- cutting features thereon for dividing the ribbon into individual parallel strips as the ribbon passes the blade.

In one embodiment, the cutter comprises only one said motor, and the advance mechanism comprises a threaded shaft driven to rotate by the motor and upon which there is mounted a carriage to which the blade is affixed, the advance mechanism adapted to move the blade at a uniform speed linearly toward the impaler and wherein the blade extends in a direction substantially perpendicular to the threaded shaft.

In another embodiment, the cutter comprises two said motors, and the advance mechanism comprises a cam driven to rotate by one of the motors to bear on a carriage to which the blade is affixed, the advance mechanism adapted to move the blade at a uniform speed linearly toward the impaler.

Preferably, the blade has a leading edge that remains substantially parallel to the impaler at all times.

Preferably, the blade is mounted to pivot about a fixed pivot point.

Preferably, the features for dividing the ribbon into

individual parallel strips as the ribbon passes the blade comprise parallel slots extending into the blade from a leading edge thereof.

Preferably, the slots are unevenly spaced across the leading edge of the blade to produce strips of food of differing width.

Preferably, the impaler comprises a threaded skewer.

Preferably, the cutter further comprises a gearbox transmitting torque from the motor to the impaler.

Preferably, the gearbox receives torque from the motor via intermeshing gears-one of which is mounted upon an output shaft of the motor and another of which is mounted upon an input shaft of the gearbox.

Preferably, the gearbox is a right angle gearbox having an output that drives the advance mechanism.

Preferably, the threaded shaft extends upwardly from a shaft bearing housing.

Preferably, the advance mechanism comprises a motor for turning a threaded shaft to thereby move the blade perpendicularly with respect to the impaler.

DEFINITION As used herein, the phrase"solid food piece"is intended to encompass substantially homogeneous pieces of food that can be sliced into continuous flexible strips.

Examples of solid food pieces include potato, carrot, parsnip, apple, pear, melon, pumpkin and other fruit and vegetable pieces. Citrus fruits, celery and string beans for example would not be included in the definition, but tofu, some cheeses, beetroot and sweet potato would be included in the definition.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Preferred forms of the present invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: Figure 1 is a schematic elevation of a cutting appliance,

Figure 2 is a further schematic side elevation of the cutting appliance of Figure 1, Figure 3 is a schematic elevation of an alternative cutting appliance, Figure 4 is a schematic elevation of the cutting appliance of Figure 3, Figure 5 is a schematic side elevation of the cutting appliance of Figures 3 and 4, Figure 6 is a schematic perspective illustration of the leading edge of a cutting blade, Figure 7 is a schematic perspective illustration of the leading edge of an alternative cutting blade, Figure 8 is a schematic cross-sectional illustration of the appliance showing internal detail of the gearbox, and Figure 9 is a schematic and elevation of an alternative advance mechanism.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS In the accompanying drawings there is depicted schematically a cutting appliance for solid food pieces.

The appliance comprises a frame 11 which might be formed integrally with a housing (not shown). Mounted upon the frame is an electric motor 5 having an output shaft 50 upon which one of a pair of intermeshing gears 51 is mounted. The other of these intermeshing gears 51 is mounted upon an input shaft 52 of a right angle gearbox 53. Attached to the other end of shaft 52 (which is also a through-shaft of the gearbox 53) is a threaded impaling skewer 2. A solid food piece 4 is shown in the drawings impaled upon the skewer 2.

Within the gearbox 53 and mounted on shaft 52 is a bevel gear 71.

Depending from the right angle gearbox 53 and driven by its bevelled pinion 54 (see Figure 8) is a threaded shaft 55 forming part of an advance mechanism 12. Threaded shaft 55 is mounted at its bottom end in a shaft bearing housing 6 affixed to the frame 11.

A cutting blade 3 is mounted upon a carriage 32. The carriage has an internally threaded aperture 36 that is threadably engaged upon the shaft 55. The blade 3 extends parallel to the skewer 2. As seen in Figure 2, the cutting portion 31 of the blade 3 bears tangentially upon the solid food piece 4. When the solid food piece 4 is rotating in a clockwise sense as indicated by arrow A in Figure 2, a ribbon R of edible food is separated therefrom.

Upon activation of the motor 5, the skewer 2 rotates at a constant speed as does the advancing mechanism 12. As a result, the carriage 32 moves upward so that the cutting portion 31 of the blade 3 moves linearly toward the skewer 2 so as to continue cutting the ribbon of food therefrom.

As the ribbon passes the blade, the additional cutting features such as upstanding sub-blades 60 (Figure 6), or slots 61 (figure 7) separate the food ribbon into strips S.

A further embodiment is depicted in Figures 3 to 5. In this embodiment, instead of providing linear movement of

the cutting blade, the blade moves in an arc. To this end, the blade 23 is mounted upon a carriage 232 which is in turn pivot-mounted upon a pivot shaft 233. In this embodiment, the shaft bearing housing 26 is also mounted pivotally to the frame 11 upon a pivot pin 27.

Operation of this embodiment is the same as that of the first embodiment, however upon activation of the motor 5, the motor, gearbox and related components all move due to pivotal motion of the carriage and the advance mechanism etc.

An alternative mechanism is depicted in Figure 9. This mechanism has separate motors 5a and 5b. Motor 5a drives gears 51 to effect rotation of the impaler 2. Motor 5b drives a gear train 62-67. The gear train comprises individual large/small gear sets resulting in low output rotational speed at the final gear 67. There is a cam 58 attached to the final gear 67. The carriage 32 extends in this embodiment from a cam box 69 having a transverse cam follower pin 70 affixed thereto. Upon slow rotation of the final gear 67 and cam 68, the profiled edge of cam 68 causes the pin 70 to move vertically and thereby move the cam box, carriage 32 and blade 3 vertically.

It should be appreciated that modifications and alterations obvious to those skills in the art are not to be considered as beyond the scope of the present invention. For example, instead of impaling the solid food piece, the solid food piece might be clamped from either side by a pair of clamping bars for example.