A food product slicer includes a base, a knife mounted for rotation relative to the base, a carriage assembly mounted to the base for reciprocal movement back and forth past a cutting edge of the knife, wherein the carriage includes a tray, a movable gauge plate for varying a thickness of food product slices, a slide rod releasably connected to the tray and having a slide rod axis and a meat grip assembly mounted on the slide rod. The slide rod is releasably retained to the tray by a seating arrangement, and the slide rod is biased outwardly along the slide rod axis away from the knife, and/or a mount arrangement of the slide rod includes a keyway style opening with slide rod retaining features.

A plant for processing food products comprises at least one processing device and in particular a processing line having a plurality of processing devices connected after one another. Furthermore, the plant comprises a remote control device, which can be positioned spatially separately from the at least one processing device, wherein the remote control device positioned spatially separately from the at least one processing device is configured to change a setting of the at least one processing device in response to a user input.

A food slicer for slicing food items includes a slicer body and a slicer knife mounted for rotation relative to the slicer body. The slicer knife has a peripheral cutting edge with an associated cutting zone, and an associated knife drive motor. A food product carriage is mounted to the slicer body for reciprocating movement back and forth past the cutting zone of the slicer knife. A knife edge evaluation system includes at least one vibration sensor positioned and configured for detecting vibrations produced during slicer knife sharpening.

A tube handling assembly for a slit tube manufacturing machine used to manufacture slit tubes each having a tube body and a slit extending a slit length along the tube body includes a base and a tube support movably coupled to the base. The tube handling assembly includes a pin actuator coupled to the tube support having a pin movable relative to the tube support between an extended position and a retracted position and configured to be inserted into an end of the tube body to hold the slit tube. The pin is retractable to release the slit tube. The tube handling assembly includes a tube linear actuator moving the tube support and the pin in a linear actuation direction. The tube handling assembly includes a tube rotation actuator moving the tube support and the pin relative to the base in a rotation actuation direction.