and then another of the three passages 40 these passages 40 act to maintain control of the apples against the slicer blade 22 significantly reducing product roll and settling time before actual slicing begins in addition because the passages 40 are horizontal they allow several apples to queue behind the apple being sliced thus providing a certain amount of head i e weight and thereby exerting additional centrifugal force on the product being sliced and further holding the fruit in place during slicing as a result the method and apparatus of this invention provides a significantly higher percentage of whole slices than a standard urschel slicer where the product is permitted to roll and bounce within the impeller before actual slicing and where with each bounce against the stator a small piece of the peel is removed also by providing additional radial force within the impeller which is not possible with u s pat no 4 648 296 a significantly higher percentage of whole slices is obtained comparison test data on percentage of non whole slices obtained using a standard urschel model cc slicer impeller the device of u s pat no 4 648 296 and the device of the present invention under the same conditions are set forth in table i below table i______________________________________urschel slicer with standard cc impeller 41 7 device of u s pat no 4 648 296 18 2 device of this invention 8 2 ______________________________________ moreover the device of this invention can increase the production rate up to three times that of u s pat no 4 648 296 and as a result permits the reduction of capital and space required by up to 50 or more when compared with the slicer used in accordance with u s pat no 4 648 296 the.