Quality of Stainless Steel Cutlery and Cookware

Are we always getting what we think we should be getting?

Is the lack of a national consumer standard (identification of product specifications and minimum food grade standards) a consumer concern? IE lesser grade products being sold at premium prices to unsuspecting consumers?

Not all stainless steel (SS) is the same!

Surprised?

Not if you have a PhD in metallurgy.

I don’t! However we noticed a tendency for a recently purchased new set of cutlery for light rust stains when put through the dish washer!

Were we being ripped off?
Basic metallurgy says the grades of SS typically used in food grade applications are equivalent to US types 304 or 316. Typically the second is what I’ve needed to use professionally in food processing applications.

At home some SS products may be labelled 18/8. This indicates 18% chromium and 8% nickel alloy content (by weight). Which is at least 304 grade SS. An interesting property of SS in these grades is they are not strongly magnetic.

Our know good quality and older SS is non magnetic, and some is even stamped 18/8. (For the nerds it is due to the grain structure and types of crystals that develop in the metallic matrix for those types of SS, described more broadly as austenitic steels.)

For Cutlery?
https://www.bssa.org.uk/topics.php?article=91

It’s only one view but points out the common differences.

Reality is that the type (quality) of Stainless Steel used in consumer products varies. Some SS is not strongly magnetic, while other grades, generally those that are lower alloy and thus cost may be ferritic or martensitic. This results in typical steel like magnetic attraction. Think fridge skins ( handy for all those fridge magnets), or plastic handled knife blades (handy to have a harder grade of SS and to help keep an edge).