JK Adams Cutting Boards
Over 80 years, Vermont’s JK Adams has built a reputation for woodenware that’s a cut above.
At the JK Adams factory in Dorset, Vermont, local workers turn out the company’s heralded cutting boards along with an array of other hardwood products for kitchen and home.
Photo Credit : David BarnumIf you were an apple, especially one plucked from an heirloom tree, you’d do well to be sliced on a JK Adams “Q-Tee” cutting board—a design that goes back more than 60 years—before being served with hunks of Vermont cheddar. If, on the other hand, you were a fresh-from-the-oven turkey, you could wind up atop something truly prestigious: the JK Adams maple reversible carving board, which for many years has been named the best of its kind by the experts at America’s Test Kitchen.
At a time when many bemoan the loss of U.S. manufacturing, there might be a lesson in this venerable family business just outside the village of Dorset, Vermont. Simply put: If you make something better than anyone else, people will want it.
Like all great American success stories, this one springs from humble origins. In 1944, Josiah Knowles Adams began manufacturing a small wooden pull toy dubbed the Speedy Racer in a small Dorset garage. His creation caught on, and Adams soon moved operations into a former icehouse located in the spot off Route 30 where his namesake company still stands today.
Adams’s fledgling wood-products business added T-squares and slide rules to its line, and in 1949 an industrial engineer named Malcolm Cooper Sr. joined as a partner. A man of talent and vision who eventually became the company’s owner, Cooper had ambition that matched the country’s growing appetite for kitchen products that were both practical and aesthetically pleasing.
His son, Malcolm Cooper Jr., once told a reporter, “I don’t recall us ever talking about sports or political news around the dinner table. It was always about the business and how to drive the business forward.” (When asked why his father did not give his own name to the company, he chalked it up to Yankee thrift: It would cost too much to change the stationery.)
Using wood from North American hardwood forests—maple, ash, walnut, cherry—the elder Cooper designed kitchen products meant to endure and be passed down through generations. He was always tinkering: One day, frustrated by how awkward it was to pull kitchen knives from their holders, he cut the bottom of a wooden block so that it slanted at a 45-degree angle. Knives slid in and out of the block with ease, and the world took notice. He also created the first modular wine rack, as well as the rotating spice rack.
As JK Adams continued turning out wooden products ranging from rolling pins to carving boards and trays, it was bringing something new to the kitchen seemingly every year. Plus, Cooper knew how to build and keep a business competitive, and in time he was able to pass the reins down to his son, Malcolm Jr., the current owner and chairman.
Photo Credit : Courtesy of JK Adams
Photo Credit : Clare Barboza
Today, a visit to the company’s Dorset headquarters offers the chance not only to browse the on-site Kitchen Store, but also to peek at what goes into the company’s guaranteed-for-life creations. Daily guided tours lead visitors along a catwalk to an observation deck, which looks down on the action in the 40,000-square-foot workspace. The whine of power saws, the smell of cut hardwood, the roar of massive industrial fans—they’re all part of a steady thrum of creation. And as befits a company that owes its name to Yankee frugality, nearly every scrap of wood here goes either to heating the plant or into a useful part of something.
A few years ago, Malcolm Cooper Jr. told a reporter why he was confident that despite global market pressures, there would always be a need for the craftsmanship he saw at work every day.
“Wood has been used for tools, shelter, and accessories since the start of recorded human history,” he said. “It’s attractive, warm to the touch, and relatively easy to work with. People always come back to wood. Dad believed that if you build something that is functional and well made, people will buy it. We are going to hold on to that.” jkadams.com
Mel Allen
Mel Allen is the fifth editor of Yankee Magazine since its beginning in 1935. His first byline in Yankee appeared in 1977 and he joined the staff in 1979 as a senior editor. Eventually he became executive editor and in the summer of 2006 became editor. During his career he has edited and written for every section of the magazine, including home, food, and travel, while his pursuit of long form story telling has always been vital to his mission as well. He has raced a sled dog team, crawled into the dens of black bears, fished with the legendary Ted Williams, profiled astronaut Alan Shephard, and stood beneath a battleship before it was launched. He also once helped author Stephen King round up his pigs for market, but that story is for another day. Mel taught fourth grade in Maine for three years and believes that his education as a writer began when he had to hold the attention of 29 children through months of Maine winters. He learned you had to grab their attention and hold it. After 12 years teaching magazine writing at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he now teaches in the MFA creative nonfiction program at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Like all editors, his greatest joy is finding new talent and bringing their work to light.
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