Machine and method for canning tuna and the like

A machine for canning tuna and similar food products, comprising

• a conveyor belt feeder;
• at least one dosing chamber aligned with said conveyor belt feeder and formed in a first rotor rotatable in a plane perpendicular to a feed direction;
• a mouth connecting the conveyor belt feeder to said at least one dosing chamber;
• cutting means suitable to separate a product introduced in the at least one dosing chamber from the bulk of fed product to obtain a product cake;
• shaping means suitable to shape said product cake into a shaped cake having a desired shape;
• and
• transferring means arranged at a station reachable through a partial rotation of said first rotor and suitable to transfer the shaped cake from the at least one dosing chamber into a can carried by a can feeder,
• wherein
• said mouth has a cross section of substantially constant shape,
• the at least one dosing chamber is defined within a corresponding at least one shaping chamber by way of mobile shutters adapted to bound, with flat surfaces, radial ends of said at least one shaping chamber,
• said shaping means comprise i) a shaped radial terminal of the at least one shaping chamber and ii) at least one opposite shaped member radially mobile between a rest position and a work position in which the product is pushed against said shaped radial terminal,
• said mobile shutters are mobile between a rest position and a work position in which said mobile shutters occupy the radial ends of the at least one shaping chamber, and
• driving means for said mobile shutters and said at least one shaped member are adapted to i) remove the mobile shutters from the at least one shaping chamber and ii) subsequently perform radial movement of the at least one shaped member when the at least one shaping chamber is still aligned with the conveyor belt feeder.