Manufacture of potato chips

摘要

Potato chip cutting apparatus comprises an annular cutting head 4 and central impeller 14 coaxially mounted for rotation within the head. The impeller has an upper surface 18 across which potatoes are delivered radially outwardly to the cutting head and a plurality of knives 8 mounted around the cutting head. Each knife has a first slice cutting edge 10 extending vertically and spaced from the cutting head to provide a radial gap defining a slice thickness, and a second cutting edge 36 extending horizontally and radially at least partly across the gap. The second cutting edge being located a predetermined distance D above the impeller upper surface to define a cutting zone for cutting potato slices into slice portions. Distance D is preferably at least 50mm and is such that the maximum width W1 of portion below the second knife is greater than the maximum width of the portion W2 above the second knife. The potatoes fed to the slicer may be graded to have a median diameter and the distance D set to at least the median so that at least 50% of the slices are not cut into portions. Allows larger potatoes to be sliced without cutting prior to slicing.