A fish head cutting machine for decapitating a fish, comprising: a) a fish support for supporting a fish in an infeed loading zone with its belly side down and its backbone in a substantially horizontal orientation; b) a guide mechanism positioned adjacent the fish support to hold the fish via an anatomical body part, such as its gill plate, collar bone, pectoral fin or pelvic fin, so that only the body of the fish is supported by the fish support; c) a drive mechanism transporting the fish in a downward direction and at an acute angle to vertical from the infeed loading zone downstream to a head cutting zone while the fish is supported on the fish support and held by the guide mechanism; d) a head pusher located between the infeed loading zone and the head cutting zone that engages the head of the fish and tips the head of the fish upwardly and rearwardly as the fish moves downstream to the head cutting zone; and e) head cutting blades located downstream of the head pusher in the cutting zone that cut the head of the fish from the body of the fish.

A method and apparatus for removing guts of a fish body, the method includes: transferring a fish body A, with a head cut off and removed, by a transfer device and cutting open the abdomen thereof with an abdominal blade on the way of transfer; transferring the fish body to a gut removal member and causing membrane separation blades, provided at an upper end portion of the gut removal member, to enter in between a peritoneal membrane portion on both sides of the vertebra and a fish meat inner wall on a head cut-off section of the fish body; swinging the gut removal member downwardly with its lower end portion as fulcrum to tilt the membrane separation blades from the horizontal state and peel off the peritoneal membrane portions from the fish meat inner wall; and shaking off downwardly the guts adhered to the peritoneal membrane portions.

A vertical packaging machine for packaging products is provided that includes a forming element with an upper mouth and a hopper upstream of the forming element. At least the hopper and the forming element form a conduit through which the product falls. A flow generator includes an injection device for injecting a gaseous fluid through a distributor for directing the fluid to the conduit. The distributer has an inlet mouth for receiving the gaseous fluid and an outlet mouth with an area smaller than the area of the inlet mouth. The injection device is controlled by a control device that is configured to cause the injection device to perform an injection for each product to be packaged in one and the same package, the start and end of which depend on the position of the product with respect to the upper mouth and the outlet mouth.

This invention is a simplified method of cooking a whole fish without the problems associated with having to eat around fish bones or overcooking the fish. The whole fish is sliced open along the bottom side, the bones are removed, and the remaining fish meat is placed over a an upside-down V shaped stand for cooking for grilling.

A method and apparatus for removing guts of a fish body, the method includes: transferring a fish body A, with a head cut off and removed, by a transfer device and cutting open the abdomen thereof with an abdominal blade on the way of transfer; transferring the fish body to a gut removal member and causing membrane separation blades, provided at an upper end portion of the gut removal member, to enter in between a peritoneal membrane portion on both sides of the vertebra and a fish meat inner wall on a head cut-off section of the fish body; swinging the gut removal member downwardly with its lower end portion as fulcrum to tilt the membrane separation blades from the horizontal state and peel off the peritoneal membrane portions from the fish meat inner wall; and shaking off downwardly the guts adhered to the peritoneal membrane portions.

A method and an apparatus for bringing fish to an under-cooled state by a sub-chilling process before processing, which prolongs rigor and allows processing of the fish in rigor providing better quality fish products.

A method for ecological utilization of silver carp, including the pretreatment of silver carp and the process of making canned fish surimi. The fish meat of silver carp is processed canned surimi. The fish heads and bones are heated and undergo enzymatic hydrolysis by enzymes, and the residues of the filtration are prepared for fish bone powder. A filtration membrane is used to reduce the volume of the filtrate to 50% of fish surimi and then the filtrate is frozen to ice. The frozen part can be added to fish surimi. The transparent part from membrane filtration was used to produce protein powder or ingredients for beverages. Fish offal can be used to produce protein liquid fertilizer. Fish scales and skins can be used to produce collagen. The method adopts ecological utilization, which makes the silver carp meat used effectively, including its processed wastes. The method is a closed cycle process such that that no pollutants or wastes are discharged during the process.

A revolutionized tuna process according to this invention generally comprising the steps of thawing of frozen tuna, de-heading and degutting, fileting, de-skinning, cleaning of the de-skinned tuna filet, pre-cooking, cooling, packing of the cleaned and pre-cooked tuna loin, and sterilizing the packed tuna loin or freezing the tuna loin. Not only does the process according to this invention reduces the energy utilization by half, it also significantly reduces the time required for cooking and cooling. Therefore, the whole processing time is significantly reduced from at least 8.0 hours in the conventional process to less than 30 minutes.

An integral hand-held device for manually securing a fish to facilitate its immovability during a fish cleaning process. The fish securing device has a handle which is adapted to be gripped by a user. The handle encases a portion of a cylindrical stem having an inner and outer surface. The portion of the stem not encased by the handle has at its forward end a serrated edge adapted to engage a fish. A user grips the handle with one hand and applies downward pressure with the securing device so that the edge penetrates a fish securing it to a cutting surface while the other hand utilizes an instrument, such as a knife, to clean the fish by filleting, skinning, gutting and/or scaling the fish. Depending on the fish type or thickness it may be necessary for a portion of the stem not encased to also penetrate the fish.

A trimming system for fish which is placed with belly sides on opposite sides of a supporting structure. A force supplying means applies opposite forces onto the belly sides towards the supporting structure. A profile measuring means determines the profile of the belly sides, and a cutting means trims the belly sides. Opposite forces are supplied by the force supplying means while the belly sides are measured by the profile measuring means, and the opposite forces are supplied while the belly sides are simultaneously trimmed.