This description relates generally to food harvesting and processing and more specifically to the harvesting and processing of fruits and vegetables having veins and/or seeds, such as peppers.
Processing of peppers (and many other crops) is typically labor intensive. When peppers are processed, processing is often done by hand, often after the peppers have been shipped to a place where the cost of labor is low. Likewise, pepper boat making is a labor intensive process to split the pepper and remove a portion of the seeds and veins of a de-stemmed pepper, typically made from a whole pepper pod. Boat making is typically done before the peppers are processed into food products, such as jalapeno appetizers.
A trend in the agriculture industry is a decrease in the availability of seasonal laborers. This decrease in the availability of labor can create challenges to a grower's ability to harvest and process peppers. In addition, processing may be outsourced to foreign countries where labor may be available at low cost, but adding transportation costs to the total cost of processing.
The following presents a simplified summary of the disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding to the reader. This summary is not an extensive overview of the disclosure and it does not identify key/critical elements of the invention or delineate the scope of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts disclosed herein, in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
The present example provides a mechanized way of making a pepper boat, or longitudinally halved pepper, from a de-stemmed pepper. In making the pepper boat, de-stemmed peppers may be split longitudinally in substantially equal halves by a splitting assembly. As the pepper is split, or subsequently, a whisk assembly tends to clean a portion of the veins and seeds from the split pepper pod to form two halves of a pepper boat, suitable for further food processing.
Many of the attendant features will be more readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description considered in connection with the accompanying drawings.
The present description will be better understood from the following detailed description read in light of the accompanying drawings, wherein:
Like reference numerals are used to designate like parts in the accompanying drawings.
The detailed description provided below in connection with the appended drawings, is intended as a description of the present examples and is not intended to represent the only forms in which the present example may be constructed or utilized. The description sets forth the functions of the example and the sequence of steps for constructing and operating the example. However, the same or equivalent functions and sequences may be accomplished by different examples.
The examples below describe a pepper boat maker. Although the present examples are described and illustrated herein as being implemented in a pepper de-stemming system, the system described is provided as an example and not a limitation. As those skilled in the art will appreciate, the present examples are suitable for application in a variety of different types of food processing or harvesting systems.
The drive mechanism 2008 may rotate in one direction or it may rotate back and forth to remove the seeds. In one example, a pneumatically operated whisk assembly 2004 rotates back and forth in approximately 270° degrees of travel, and is air operated. The wire whisk assembly 2004 is typically flexible enough so that the pepper is not damaged (internal cell structure) as the wires conform to the interior of the pepper as it removes the seeds and veins.
Block 2002 shows a previous processing module used to process a pepper. A typical processing module may be one that destems the pepper.
Number | Date | Country | |
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60912400 | Apr 2007 | US |