Fruit chunking and spear forming method and apparatus

A method of automatically chunking unpeeled fruit at high speed, wherein said fruit has an axis extending through the fruit from its stem through the center of said fruit to the bottom of said fruit, comprising the steps:

• slicing each unpeeled fruit to form a plurality of unpeeled wedges wherein each wedge has a generally C-shaped, longitudinal cross section having a central region and two upturned ends, and a longitudinal axis extending between said two upturned ends,
• moving each of said unpeeled wedges in singulated fashion onto a separate flight of a flighted conveyor so that the longitudinal axis of each wedge lies perpendicularly relative to the direction of travel of said flighted conveyor, and wherein said upturned ends of each wedge extend outwardly from said flighted conveyor,
• conveying said unpeeled wedges through a series of transverse cutting blades, wherein said blades are staggered along the direction of motion of said conveyor, whereby said blades make transverse cuts through the longitudinal central region of each wedge first, and thereafter make transverse cuts through regions that lie further away from the longitudinal center of each wedge, whereby each of said wedges is caused to flatten out as it is cut transversely in a sequential fashion from its center toward each of its upturned ends, thereby forming chunks of said fruit having maximized rectangular prism shape, and
• peeling said wedges.