About ten years ago when TrueRide Inc. began designing and building municipal skateboard parks from high grade plywood, no one at the company thought of cutting boards as a side business. Faced with a massive hoard of perfectly good plywood scrap, and an ecologically sensitive staff, TrueRide looked for ways to put that wood to good use. The Epicurean line of utensils and cutting boards resulted.
Located in Duluth, Minnesota, Epicurean Inc. places “green” principles first in all phases of manufacturing and sales. As demand for the company’s unique cutting boards grew and the supply of scrap plywood dropped, Epicurean turned to alternate sustainable resources and recycled materials. Pulp wood from managed forests and fiber from reclaimed paper also contribute to the resin-bonded layers that make up Epicurean products. Epicurean even uses the volatile compounds vented as the resin cures, capturing the waste gases and using them as heating fuel during the drying process. All scrap the company can’t use goes to a local power plant for generation of electricity. Even shipping and packaging policies keep the environment in mind, using recycled cardboard as shipping material and only 100 percent recycled plastic for store displays.
Epicurean is best known for its wide variety of cutting boards. The boards are exceptionally durable, lightweight, and easy on knife edges. The wood fiber/resin mix gives the boards a natural wood look but combines that friendly appearance with the best features of synthetic boards. All Epicurean products show high heat resistance and a non-porous working surface which won’t harbor bacteria. Unlike natural wood boards, Epicurean boards were meant for cleaning in the dishwasher. That makes cleaning and sanitizing automatic and doesn’t require extra hand labor or harsh sanitizing chemicals. You’ll find many features that aren’t included in hardwood cutting fixtures, such as boards that snap together for a larger working surface; boards with special drainage channels; and boards with grids of short pegs that prevent meat from sliding during carving. Epicurean also manufactures an array of kitchen utensils created from the same fiber/resin material.
See all of our Epicurean reviews below
