How to mark knives used in the meat industry?

Hi all,

I'm wondering if someone has some tips on how to mark my knives with numbers.

It would help for them to seperate each knife while doing the checkup list on the state of the knife.

I guess you cannot use tape since it can rip off and fall in your open product.

Any advice is welcome!

Thanks.

Hi Michiel,

Can you not etch or engrave them with an identification number?
That's what we do with all metal tools.

I second engraving

If you want to go one further; attached a knife number to an employee..........then you know who's damaging knives repeatedly

Poultry background here and that's the program I've always used

Thanks guys! 

I'll take this with me.

the last company I worked at I was involved in setting up a knife policy. we etched the handles with numbers. Not everyone was issued a knife. If one was needed they had to come into the quality office and sign one out. on the sign out sheet they had to write the sign out and sign in times, along with where the knife was being used (ie: what product that day) . The sign out and sign in was verified by a quality tech. This really worked well and proved good control of knives in the facility. In addition you had the verified sheet to validate your policy. 

When I was working in a kitchen years ago, we had color coded handles for each use of the knife just how the cutting boards are (It was either that or we used our own knives). Along with the color coding, there were numbers for each of them. People are habitual, so usually they will grab the same number that they feel comfortable, but as mentioned above, you can assign an employee a specific knife to understand misuse. 

Adolf,

When you are butchering the meat your knives dull quickly and you are probably sending them out en masse to get sharpened.  I have seen metal number stamps used to punch the numbers onto the heel or the spine of the knife.  It can be cleaner looking than an etch and wont wear out over time.  You can buy an inexpensive set on Amazon.

Cheers!

i work with a food service company and in the commissary where we process the vegetable we color coded with numbers all our knives with different colours for different purposes, inside the commissary we had a hanger where we gave each hanger numbers, so after work the knives are washed sanitized and hanged on the hanger according to the colour coding.