Out of the Woods of Oregon
Out of the Woods of Oregon, located in Eugene, OR, makes handcrafted kitchen and gift items from local wood, primarily from the red alder trees that grow nearby. Founded in 1994, at some point in the early 2000s, the company began importing sets of cheese spreaders that could be housed in the handmade wood blocks that the company makes specifically to hold spreader sets of four.
handsome wood blocks made by Out of the Woods
of Oregon. I’ve picked up several of these blocks
over the years, and use them to display my
favorite sets.
The blades of the OWO spreaders are not marked with the company’s name, but usually with “Stainless Steel China,” or sometimes, “Stainless Steel, Made in China”. Most of the natural-color cardboard cases the spreader sets are packaged in have a copyright date of 2005 (they must have ordered a large number of cases at once), although I have seen some with a copyright date of 2011 as well.
The spreader sets in wood blocks were originally packaged in a small wood crate for retail sale:
I have seen probably around forty different spreader sets made by Out of the Woods of Oregon, probably a quarter of which have metal handles, and another half dozen with plain decorative handles (not in the shapes of foods or animals). The remaining two dozen or so are resin handle spreaders in a variety of subjects.
Out of the Woods of Oregon continues to sell spreaders and wood items (like cutting boards shaped like US states) on it website.
Here are some of the forty or so spreaders made by Out of the Woods of Oregon that I have found online:
https://www.pinterest.com/bethinIowa1457/cheese-spreaders-out-woods-of-oregon/