Apparatus for slicing and arranging food products

A formatting apparatus and a cutting apparatus, for the slicing of food products (11), wherein the cutting apparatus comprises a product supply device (13) which supplies a product (11) to be sliced to a cutting plane (15) in which a cutting knife moves and a support table (17), onto which the product slices cut off by means of the cutting knife fall and which is provided with a controllable motor drive (19, 21), which displaces the support table (17) relative to the falling product slices to form portions of any desired shape from a plurality of product slices;

• wherein the formatting apparatus comprises:
• a formatting device (23) on which product slices (25) can be realistically presented and which has a formatting function by means of which a user (27) can prepare any desired formats (29) from a plurality of product slices (25) on the display device (23) by moving virtual product slices;
• and
• an evaluation device (31), which converts the positions of the product slices (25) forming a prepared format (29) on the display device (23) into control commands for the motor drive (19, 21) on the basis of which the motor drive (19, 21) displaces the support table (17) in dependence on the cutting speed such that portions are formed on the support table (17) in accordance with the format (29) prepared on the display device (23).

A method of slicing food products (11) by means of a cutting apparatus, wherein a product (11) to be sliced is supplied to a cutting plane (15) in which a cutting knife is moved with the product slices cut off by means of the cutting knife falling onto a support table (17) which is provided with a controllable motor drive (19, 21) with which the support table (17) can be displaced relative to the falling product slices in order to form portions of any desired shape from a plurality of product slices, the method comprising:

• providing a realistic representation of product slices (25) on a display device (23);
• making available a formatting function by means of which a user (27) can prepare any desired formats (29) from a plurality of product slices (25) on the display device (23) by moving virtual product slices;
• converting positions of the product slices (25) forming a prepared format (29) on the display device (23) into control commands for the motor drive (19, 21);
• and
• controlling the motor drive (19, 21) for the displacement of the support table (17) such that portions are formed on the support table (17) which correspond to the format (29) prepared on the display device (23).