How to Choose Commercial Kitchen Knives & HACCP Colour Coding: The Complete UK Guide (2026)
Commercial kitchen knives are two decisions in one: which blades your team actually needs to cut efficiently, and how you colour-code those blades and their boards to keep raw and cooked foods apart. The second decision is the one an Environmental Health Officer looks at first. The HACCP six-colour system — red, blue, green, yellow, brown and white — is the UK trade standard for preventing cross-contamination, and it works only when your chopping boards and your knives (or at least their handles) follow the same colour logic. This guide covers both: the core knife set by task, the colour-coding standard that satisfies retained Regulation 852/2004, safe storage that keeps blades off the drawer floor, and the steel maintenance that keeps them sharp — because a blunt knife is both slower and more dangerous than a sharp one.
- The six-colour standard: red = raw meat, blue = raw fish, green = salad, fruit & veg, yellow = cooked meat, brown = vegetables (root/dirty veg in some systems), white = bakery & dairy. Match boards and knife handles to the same colour to prevent cross-contamination.
- It is a HACCP control, not a decoration: colour coding is how you demonstrate separation of raw and ready-to-eat foods under your HACCP plan, required by retained Regulation 852/2004. An EHO checks that the system exists, is followed, and is written into your procedures.
- Core knife set is four blades: a chef’s knife (200–250mm, the workhorse), a cook’s/utility knife (150mm), a paring knife (75–100mm, fine work), and a boning knife (150mm, flexible, for meat/fish). Most tasks need only these four.
- Colour-coded handles reinforce the board system: where budget allows, colour-coded knife handles matched to the board colours make cross-use obvious and are easy for an EHO — and a new starter — to police at a glance.
- Store on racks or wall bars, never loose in a drawer: loose blades in a drawer dull each other, are a serious cut hazard, and cannot be colour-segregated. Wall bars, in-drawer blocks or knife racks keep edges protected and colours separated.
- Sharpness is a safety feature: a sharp knife cuts where you aim it with light pressure; a blunt one slips under force and causes deep cuts. Hone daily, sharpen periodically, and replace blades that no longer take an edge.
- Boards and knives are a matched system: a red board with a green knife defeats the point. Buy boards and (ideally) handles as a colour set, and train staff that the colour follows the food, not the chef.
- Low-density polyethylene boards are the workhorse: LDPE colour-coded boards are hygienic, knife-friendly and dishwasher-safe; replace them once the surface is deeply scored, as grooves harbour bacteria.
Knives get bought two ways in commercial kitchens: a chef brings their own roll and the kitchen never standardises, or someone buys a cheap block set that goes blunt in a month. Neither gives you a colour-coded, HACCP-compliant system that survives a staff change or an EHO visit. The right approach treats knives and boards as one system: a small, sharp core set, colour-coded to a documented standard, stored safely, and maintained. This guide walks through all four parts.
This guide is for the trade buyer specifying knives and boards for a commercial kitchen — head chef, kitchen manager, restaurant or pub owner, care-home or contract catering lead, or catering procurement. Domestic knife sets and gift blocks are out of scope. Browse the Craven Cooling knives, boards and cutlery range when you are ready.
Table of Contents
The HACCP board-and-handle standard that separates raw from ready-to-eat
Core set — chef’s, cook’s, paring and boning — covers most tasks
The retained regulation that requires demonstrable raw/cooked separation
The single highest-risk mistake in any kitchen is cutting ready-to-eat food on a board or with a knife that has touched raw meat or fish. The HACCP six-colour system exists to make that mistake impossible to make by accident: the colour follows the food, not the chef. A red board and red-handled knife touch only raw meat; a yellow board and yellow knife touch only cooked meat. An EHO checks that the colours exist, are used correctly, and are written into your HACCP procedures — get any of those three wrong and it is a recorded infraction.
Never share a board or blade between raw and ready-to-eat food
Decision 1: The HACCP Colour-Coding System
Start with the colours, because they dictate how many boards you buy and how you organise knives and storage. The six-colour standard is the UK trade convention for separating food types.
| Colour | Food group | Examples | Why it is separated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red | Raw meat | Beef, lamb, pork, raw poultry portions | Highest pathogen risk — must never touch ready-to-eat food |
| Blue | Raw fish | Fish fillets, shellfish, raw seafood | Distinct pathogens and allergens from meat |
| Green | Salad, fruit & veg | Lettuce, tomatoes, prepared salad, fruit | Often served raw — keep clear of any raw protein |
| Yellow | Cooked meat | Cooked chicken, sliced ham, roast joints | Ready-to-eat — contamination here goes straight to the plate |
| Brown | Vegetables | Root and dirty vegetables (peeling/prep) | Soil-borne contamination kept off clean boards |
| White | Bakery & dairy | Bread, cheese, pastry, dairy | Ready-to-eat — separated from all raw and soil-borne foods |
You do not need one of every colour in every kitchen. A fish-and-chip shop leans on blue and white; a butcher’s kitchen leans on red and yellow; a salad-led deli leans on green and white. But you must be able to demonstrate separation of raw and ready-to-eat foods, so most kitchens hold the full board set even if some colours see light use. The knives — or at least their handles — should follow the same colour logic so a red-handled knife never touches a green board.
Having colour-coded boards is not enough on its own. Under retained Regulation 852/2004 you must operate a documented food-safety management system based on HACCP principles, and the colour system is one of your controls for preventing cross-contamination. That means the standard is written down, staff are trained in it, and it is actually followed in service. An EHO can — and will — check all three. A chart on the wall plus trained staff plus consistent practice is what passes an inspection.
Decision 2: The Core Knife Set by Task
A commercial kitchen does not need a twenty-piece block. It needs a small set of the right blades, sharp, and matched to the tasks your menu actually demands.
Chef’s Knife
200–250mm — the workhorse
- Chopping, slicing, dicing
- Handles 80% of prep
- Wide blade for rock-chopping
- The one blade to buy well
- One per station minimum
Cook’s / Utility Knife
150mm — mid-size all-rounder
- Smaller than a chef’s knife
- Trimming, medium veg, portioning
- More control for detailed cuts
- Bridges chef’s and paring
- Everyday second blade
Paring Knife
75–100mm — fine work
- Peeling, turning, coring
- In-hand precision cuts
- Garnish and detail work
- Cheap to replace, keep sharp
- Several per kitchen
Boning Knife
150mm — flexible blade
- Boning, filleting, trimming
- Narrow, flexible blade
- Meat and fish preparation
- Colour-code to raw meat/fish
- Butchery and fish stations
| Knife | Length | Primary task | Typical colour zone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chef’s knife | 200–250mm | General chopping, slicing, dicing | Matched to the board in use |
| Cook’s / utility | 150mm | Trimming, portioning, medium veg | Matched to the board in use |
| Paring | 75–100mm | Peeling, turning, coring, garnish | Green (fruit/veg) most often |
| Boning | 150mm | Boning, filleting, meat/fish trim | Red (meat) or blue (fish) |
| Serrated / bread | 200–250mm | Bread, pastry, soft crusts | White (bakery) |
Buy the chef’s knife well — it does the majority of the work, and a good one that holds an edge saves time and prevents the slips a blunt blade causes. The paring knives can be cheaper and treated as consumables, kept sharp and replaced when they wear. Match the boning knife’s colour zone to the food it prepares (red for meat, blue for fish) so it slots into the colour system rather than sitting outside it. Steak knives and table cutlery are a separate front-of-house purchase from the prep knives covered here.
Craven Cooling stocks or sources colour-coded commercial kitchen knives — chef’s, cook’s, paring and boning blades with handles matched to the HACCP board colours — plus cutlery and knife storage. Tell us your stations and menu and we’ll build a matched knife-and-board set to the six-colour standard. Call 01792 732702 or email [email protected].
Decision 3: Storage & Cross-Contamination Control
How you store knives and boards is a food-safety and a health-and-safety decision at once. Loose blades in a drawer fail on both counts.
Loose blades dull each other, cannot be colour-segregated, and are a serious cut hazard when someone reaches in blind. Every guide to safe kitchens says the same thing: knives belong on a rack, wall bar or in-drawer block, never rattling loose.
A magnetic wall bar, slotted rack or knife block keeps edges protected and lets you group knives by colour zone. Position storage so raw-meat and raw-fish knives are physically separated from ready-to-eat knives — the layout reinforces the colour discipline.
An upright board rack keeps each colour visible and air-dried between uses. Stacking boards flat traps moisture and makes it easy to grab the wrong colour. A rack that shows all six colours at a glance is the simplest way to keep the system honest.
Train every starter on the single rule that makes the system work: match the board and knife colour to the food, every time, whoever is cutting. A red board with a green knife defeats the entire point. Consistency, not memory, is what an EHO looks for.
Even with correct colours, boards and knives are washed and sanitised between uses — the colour system reduces risk, it does not replace cleaning. Warewasher-safe LDPE boards and dishwasher-safe knife handles make this routine rather than a chore.
Knife grooves in a board harbour bacteria that cleaning cannot reach. Once a board’s surface is deeply and widely scored, replace it. Building board replacement into your cleaning schedule keeps the colour system genuinely hygienic rather than just visibly present.
Decision 4: Steel & Blade Maintenance
A knife is only as good as its edge. Understanding the basics of steel and keeping blades sharp is a safety measure as much as a performance one.
| Steel type | Edge retention | Ease of sharpening | Corrosion resistance | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stainless | Good | Easy | High | General commercial use — the safe default |
| High-carbon stainless | Very good | Moderate | High | Chefs wanting a keener, longer-lasting edge |
| Carbon steel | Excellent | Easy | Low — rusts | Specialist use — needs careful drying and care |
For most commercial kitchens, stainless or high-carbon stainless is the right call: it takes and holds a good edge, resists the corrosion that constant washing and acidic foods cause, and does not demand the meticulous drying carbon steel needs. Carbon steel gives a superb edge but rusts if left wet, so it is a specialist choice. Whichever steel you choose, the maintenance routine is the same: hone the edge daily on a steel to realign it, sharpen periodically on a stone or with a proper sharpener to restore it, and retire a blade once it no longer takes an edge. A deeper look at steel grades is covered in our knife-steel guide linked below.
Colour-Coded Boards We Stock
The foundation of the whole system is a colour-coded board set. Craven Cooling stocks the Hygiplas six-colour board set — the practical starting point for HACCP-compliant separation. Stocked July 2026. Price + VAT.
+ VAT — Craven Cooling trade price
Full six-colour set
- All six HACCP colours in one set
- 450 × 300 × 10mm low-density polyethylene
- Red, blue, green, yellow, brown, white
- Knife-friendly, dishwasher-safe surface
- Colour-coded to prevent cross-contamination
The single purchase that puts a compliant colour system into any kitchen — all six HACCP colours in one low-density board set, hygienic and warewasher-safe. Pair with colour-matched knives and an upright rack, and you have the separation an EHO expects.
Beyond the board set, Craven Cooling stocks or sources colour-coded kitchen knives (chef’s, cook’s, paring, boning), additional chopping boards and racks, and cutlery. Tell us your stations, menu and covers and we’ll spec a matched six-colour set with knives, boards and storage. Call 01792 732702 or email [email protected].
Knife & Colour-Coding Compliance Checklist
Run this before an EHO does.
-
Full six-colour board set in place
Red, blue, green, yellow, brown and white — even if some colours see light use, you must be able to demonstrate separation. -
Colour chart displayed and staff trained
A wall chart plus trained staff plus consistent practice is what passes an inspection. Colour coding is a documented HACCP control. -
Knife handles colour-matched where possible
Colour-coded handles make cross-use obvious and easy to police. A red-handled knife never touches a green board. -
Core knife set complete and sharp
Chef’s, cook’s, paring and boning knives, honed daily and sharpened periodically. A sharp knife is a safe knife. -
Knives stored on racks or wall bars, never loose
Loose blades in a drawer dull each other, are a cut hazard, and cannot be colour-segregated. -
Boards stored upright and air-dried
An upright rack keeps each colour visible and dry, and stops staff grabbing the wrong colour from a flat stack. -
Wash and sanitise between food types
Colour coding reduces risk; it does not replace cleaning. Boards and knives are washed and sanitised between uses. -
Deeply scored boards retired
Knife grooves harbour bacteria cleaning cannot reach. Build board replacement into the cleaning schedule.
Commercial kitchen knives and HACCP colour coding are one linked system. The six-colour standard — red (raw meat), blue (raw fish), green (salad, fruit and veg), yellow (cooked meat), brown (vegetables), white (bakery and dairy) — separates raw from ready-to-eat food and is a documented control under retained Regulation 852/2004; an EHO checks that the colours exist, are used correctly, and are written into your HACCP plan. The governing rule is that the colour follows the food, not the chef. The core knife set is four blades: a chef's knife (200–250mm workhorse, buy it well), a cook's/utility knife (150mm), a paring knife (75–100mm, treat as a consumable), and a boning knife (150mm, colour-coded to meat or fish); serrated bread knives sit in the white zone. Store knives on racks or wall bars — never loose in a drawer, where they dull each other and become a cut hazard — and store boards upright in a rack, air-dried and colour-visible. Stainless or high-carbon stainless steel is the right default for edge retention and corrosion resistance; hone daily, sharpen periodically, and remember a sharp knife is a safe knife. Craven Cooling stocks the Hygiplas six-colour board set from £28.77 + VAT and sources matched colour-coded knives and storage to your stations. Call 01792 732702 or visit the Swansea showroom.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Related Buying Guides
For the wider colour-coded cleaning approach, read HACCP colour coding for utensils and chopping boards and colour-coded cleaning systems for food safety. To go deeper on blade steel, see how to choose the right knife steel for commercial kitchens. And for the table knives and cutlery that sit front of house, read 18/10 vs 18/0 stainless steel cutlery explained.
