Food Product Cutting Apparatus Having Onboard Pusher and Blade Cartridge Storage, and Pusher/Blade Cartridge Sets Suitable Therefor

Abstract

A food product cutting apparatus having a chassis designed and configured for onboard pusher/blade-cartridge set storage. The food product cutting apparatus is designed and configured so that one food product pusher can be readily swapped out for another food product pusher and so that the corresponding blade cartridges can be swapped. The removed pusher may be nested with the removed blade cartridge and the combined nested pusher/blade-cartridge set stowed in a storage receptacle provided in the chassis of a food product cutting apparatus. In some embodiments, each pusher/blade-cartridge set may be provided with a tool-less retainer that retains the pusher in nested engagement with the corresponding blade cartridge. In some embodiments, the retainer may be provided with one or more wash openings so that a pusher/blade-cartridge set can be washed and/or sanitized with the retainer in place.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.