A device for simultaneous three-sided trimming of products in a plurality of cutting stations includes a common upper knife carrier operable in a vertical motion, blades to be attached to the upper knife carrier for at least front edge trimming and top and bottom trimming of the products and a first drive for driving the upper knife carrier. A conveyor system has top-related and bottom-related pairs of conveyor belts for conveying the products through the cutting stations of the device and a second drive driving the conveyor system. The first and second drives are self-contained, mutually independent drives connected to one another by control units. The top-related and bottom-related pairs of conveyor belts of the conveyor system are each driven by self-contained, mutually independent, position-controlled drives.

When a length in a conveying direction of a margin to be cut off is shorter than a predetermined distance between a cutting part and a second conveying part, a sheet cutting machine feeds a first sheet to the cutting part using a first conveying part while keeping the second conveying part positioned at a conveying path. When the length is equal to or longer than the predetermined distance, the machine feeds the first sheet to the cutting part using the first conveying part after upwardly retracting the second conveying part from the conveying path using a retracting mechanism.

A puffer pan comprises a plurality of pan segments and one or more air chambers that include a plurality of groups of nozzles. Each panel segment is associated with a group of nozzles configured to blow scrap across the panel segment to at least a next location. For a subset of panel segments, the next location is an adjacent panel segment. For an end panel segment, the next location is off the puffer pan.

A front end conveyor includes a frame having a first side and a second side, a lower deck and an upper deck. The lower deck includes a plurality of sheet supports, and upper portions of the sheet supports lie in a first plane. The upper deck includes a plurality of sheet guides that define with the sheet supports a sheet transport path through the front end conveyor. A chad wall extends transversely to the sheet transport direction and has a top edge located below the sheet transport path and a front surface facing in the upstream direction and a plurality of fingers projecting from the front surface in the upstream direction. The top edge of the chad wall is positioned relative to the sheet transport path such that hanging chads depending from the sheets will impact the chad wall.

The present invention relates to a device (5) for slicing one or more food products (2), especially sausage, ham and/or cheese, wherein for every food product (2) a separate track (7) is provided along which said food product is transported towards a moving blade (11) which separates food slices (12) from the front end of the food product (2).

A front end conveyor includes a frame having a first side and a second side, a lower deck and an upper deck. The lower deck includes a plurality of sheet supports, and upper portions of the sheet supports lie in a first plane. The upper deck includes a plurality of sheet guides, and the plurality of sheet supports and the plurality of sheet guides define therebetween a sheet transport path for moving sheets in a sheet transport direction toward the downstream end of the front end conveyor. A transverse scrap conveyor is mounted below the lower deck to carry scrap in a direction perpendicular to the sheet transport direction. The transverse scrap conveyor is secured to and supported by the frame such that the transverse scrap conveyor is movable with the frame as a unit.

A sheet material processing unit (20, 22, 24) comprises a transport system (32) for transporting sheets (12) or parts thereof from a respective input end (20i, 22i, 24i) to a respective output end (20o, 22o, 24o). A gripper unit (46) is releasably coupled to the transport system (32) and is configured for holding at least a part of one of the sheets (12). Additionally, at least one handover mechanism (47d, 47r) is provided being configured for decoupling the gripper unit (46) from the transport system (32) and providing the gripper unit (46) to a neighboring sheet material processing unit (20, 22, 24) and/or receiving a gripper unit (46) from a neighboring sheet material processing unit (20, 22, 24) and coupling the received gripper unit (46) to the corresponding transport system (32). Additionally, a sheet material processing machine (10) is presented which comprises at least two such sheet material processing units (20, 22, 24).