Method of and apparatus for extracting juice and meat from a fruit

US4937088A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• The Procter & Gamble Company · US

Inventors

• Peter G. Gosselin · Springfield, US
• Ronald W. Kock · Wyoming, US
• Michael S. Kolodesh · Cincinnati, US
• Jeffrey T. Leitner · Cincinnati, US
• Bruce A. Pierson · Cincinnati, US
• H. Norman Reiboldt · Oxford, US
• David A. Sabatelli · Cleves, US
• Vicki L. Weber · Cincinnati, US
• William Willhite, Jr. · Cincinnati, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 29, 1988
• Grant date: Jun 26, 1990
• Expiry date: Dec 29, 2008

Classification

• Technology area (CPC A): Human Necessities
• CPC primary: A23N1/003
• WIPO field: Other special machines
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

A method of and apparatus for extracting the meat section and juice from a fruit while minimizing the amount of undesirable flavor components, e.g. peel oil, released from the fruit's peel. In one embodiment of the present invention, whole fruits are fed into a single station extraction apparatus that first cuts a equatorial groove in the fruit's peel while the fruit is rotated. A semicircular coring blade is then inserted into the groove and rotated 360.degree. which severs a spherical chunk of fruit meat from the peel. The small amount of fruit meat remaining on the peel's inner surface is then preferably extracted with a reaming element or fluid jet nozzle. In other particularly preferred embodiments, the grooving, coring, and reaming component mechanisms are incorporated into an indexing turret apparatus and a high-speed continuous motion turret apparatus.