Method of forming shaped potato products

A method of forming mutually segregated elongated narrow strips of food product from a potato dough, comprising the steps of:

• supplying a flowable potato dough material, including potatoes and a binder mixed together, into a nip area defined by a die roll and a feed roll, the die roll defining a plurality of generally parallel laterally adjacent annularly-extending cavities;
• said cavities each having a bottom wall and opposed sidewalls forming circumferentially-extending grooves, and said opposed sidewalls of said grooves being disposed in plan to define an alternating laterally zig-zag excursion, so that strips of dough shaped therein have a crinkle configuration;
• rotating the die roll and the feed roll in opposite directions to force the potato dough into said zig-zag grooves;
• compacting and shaping the dough within said zig-zag grooves, and restricting the dough from forming a continuous sheet or layer between adjacent grooves, by placing an endless belt in contact with a portion of the periphery of the die roll and applying pressure against the die roll and belt with a resilient pressure roll;
• and
• extracting the mutually separate crinkle-shaped strips of dough from the zig-zag grooves and depositing the shaped dough strips upon the belt in side-by-side mutually spaced and generally parallel dispositions, said extracting step being accomplished as the belt separates from the die roll.