A food patty-forming apparatus for forming food patties from pressurized foodproduct includes a mold plate that is guided to reciprocate longitudinallybetween a fill position and a discharge position. The mold plate has a cavitythat is open to the source of pressurized food product when in the fillposition. The cavity is exposed when in the discharge position. A mold patternhaving open areas and solid areas is arranged adjacent a first face of thecavity, and indented from a second face. A knockout plunger has open areascorresponding to the solid areas of the pattern and solid areas correspondingto the open areas of the mold pattern. The knockout plunger is shaped to allowthe solid areas of the plunger to penetrate into the cavity past the firstface of the cavity around the solid areas to displace a patty formed in thecavity.
