Centrum, Inc.
Another early manufacturer of spreaders was Centrum, Inc. of Norwalk, CT, a company incorporated in 1994 that made decorative tableware and ceramic items. (Centrum was a subsidiary of Tienshan Corp., a Norwalk ceramic dinnerware manufacturer established in 1978 that sold dinnerware under the Tienshan, Culinary Arts, Folkcraft and Stoney Hill names.) The companies appear to have ceased operations around 2009.
Centrum seems to have focused on spreader house sets, although it did not issue as many as Boston Warehouse or Cardinal, Inc. (at least one spreader house set was issued identically by both Centrum and Cardinal, so it could be that they worked with the same factory in China).
Of the 15 or so Centrum spreader house sets I have run across, most are the usual Christmas and food/drinks subjects. But notable among them are two of the most delightfully ludicrous spreader houses I have ever seen:
As mentioned, I have only seen about 15 spreader houses made by Centrum, plus around five sets of four spreaders without a house. More undoubtedly exist, but they likely don’t come up for auction very often.
And very unfortunately, the individual spreaders are not marked with the brand name, nor do the spreader houses have any imprint on the bottom (I have seen tiny stickers on the bottoms that read “Made in China,” but these likely often fall off or are removed.) Only if the spreaders or houses are still in their original boxes is it apparent that they were made by Centrum. Possibly, many of the unmarked houses and older spreader sets out there were made by Centrum, but there’s no way to tell.
Here’s a link to my Pinterest board for the spreaders and houses that have been identified as such, that I have seen online:
https://www.pinterest.com/bethinIowa1457/centrum-spreaders/
And here is a page with a list of Centrum Spreaders and information about them: