Outline
Informing consumers about the place of origin and producer of agricultural products is becoming more and more important, in some cases it is also subject to legal regulations. The sticker and painting based marking used so far is polluting and represents food health risk. The invention relates to an apparatus for marking hard-shelled crops (14), especially vegetables and fruits, comprising a marking template (19) with breakthroughs and a marking device (3) for delivering the marking material to the surface of the crop by means of the marking template. The marking device (1) has a marking material reservoir (2) and a fluid channel (4) carrying a marking material (3). The tracer reservoir (2) has a tracer loading port (8) and a tracer outlet (7), wherein the inlet (10) of the fluid channel (4) carrying the tracer (3) is connected to a fluid source (9) at a pressure above ambient pressure.