Why does a handmade chopping board cost more?

Put a £25 wooden chopping board next to one of my larger boards costing well over £100 and the obvious question is: why would I spend that much more?

I would ask exactly the same thing.

Both will chop an onion. Both may be made from wood. Both may look perfectly good in a photograph. The cheaper one may also be lighter, easier to replace and much better suited to your budget.

I make the more expensive one, so I am not asking you to take my word for it. It is more useful to compare the two properly.

The short answer: the extra money in a handmade hardwood board should buy you something tangible: identifiable timber, sound construction, a substantial physical feel, careful finishing, good workmanship and a route to maintenance or repair. If those things do not matter to you, spending more may make little sense. If they do, price alone stops being a very useful comparison.

What should you compare besides price?

If you already have another board open, look at its product page before reading further.

Not because I expect it to fail some secret Timbermere test. It may do rather well.

I would consider price, weight, dimensions, construction, timber, finish, care and what happens if something goes wrong. I would also think about how you actually live. A three-kilo butcher's block is no advantage if lifting it every evening is a nuisance. A board that cannot go in the dishwasher is the wrong purchase if dishwasher cleaning is essential to you.

That gives us a fairer comparison.

If the other board answers everything you care about and costs much less, that is useful information.

So is finding that it does not.

Does the weight of a wooden chopping board matter?

Weight is difficult to convey in an online photograph.

Take my Checkley butcher's block as a real example. It is 3.5cm thick and weighs just over 3kg. Those are simply two numbers on a specification sheet. In the hand, three kilos feels quite different from a thin board you can lift with two fingers. Once the Checkley is on the worktop, that mass helps it feel settled while you chop.

That is useful for some people.

For somebody who stores a board in a high cupboard after every meal, it might be exactly the opposite.

There is no universally correct answer.

What extra work goes into a handmade chopping board?

A lot of the work happens so that you do not have to think about it afterwards.

I start with rough timber and decide which pieces belong together. The timber is flattened and dimensioned, cut accurately, arranged, glued and flattened again. I shape the edges so they feel comfortable to hold, then work through the sanding before applying the finish.

None of those operations is valuable simply because it takes me time.

The value is in the result: a flat board, quiet joints, a comfortable edge and a surface that feels right in use.

Mixed timbers bring another set of decisions. Where does the dark walnut belong? Which piece of oak has too much movement in the grain for that position? Would changing one strip improve the whole composition?

There is usually quite a bit of putting timber down, looking at it, moving it and looking again.

That part does not appear on a specification sheet.

Why does an end-grain chopping board cost more?

End grain adds another stage to the process.

First, I prepare and glue a panel. Then I cut that finished panel apart again, turn the sections so the ends of the wood fibres face upwards, arrange and glue them once more, and flatten the new surface.

The Checkley, for example, contains sixty individual end-grain sections.

That does not make it sixty times better than a simpler board. It means the construction is more involved and creates a different working surface.

I like end grain for the way it feels under a knife, how fine cutting marks tend to sit in the surface and the patterns that become possible when different woods are arranged together.

But edge grain is not a lesser version of a chopping board.

It takes fewer stages to make, is usually lighter and often costs less. For many kitchens, that is exactly what makes it the better choice.

Does end grain really keep knives sharper?

This claim is repeated often, including by chopping-board makers.

The one independent comparison I found tested acacia end grain against long grain over 2,000 cuts. It found no significant difference in measured edge sharpness between the two wooden boards.

So I would not suggest buying an end-grain Timbermere board because it will transform the life of your knives.

Buy one if you like the substantial feel, the way the surface wears, the pattern and the construction.

Those are enough reasons without adding another one.

What glue and finish does Timbermere use?

On glued boards I use Titebond III.

Titebond states that the cured adhesive is U.S. FDA-approved for indirect food contact, including cutting boards. That is the manufacturer's wording, and it is the wording I use too.

Timbermere boards are finished with Walrus Oil Cutting Board Oil and Wood Wax. The finish may contain mineral oil, beeswax, fractionated coconut oil and vitamin E. I publish that information in the Care Guide for anybody with a relevant sensitivity or allergy.

Are cheap chopping boards actually unsafe?

I really cannot say, and I would be careful with anyone who says they can. I have never tested a supermarket board, so I cannot say what you might find inside one.

Food-contact rules are real, and they are sometimes broken. The Food Standards Agency told businesses in Great Britain to remove plastic containers and utensils made with bamboo or other unauthorised plant fibres from sale. It says formaldehyde and melamine can leak into food above legal limits. Its notice, updated in July 2024, says there was too little evidence to conclude that these products are safe.

Across 21 EU countries, a coordinated enforcement action found 748 non-compliant food-contact items. Of the 644 found on the market, 580 were sold online, and most came from China. One tested coffee cup released formaldehyde at 25 times the permitted limit.

None of that is about wooden chopping boards.

Those cases involved bamboo powder mixed with melamine plastic. This is a different product with a different issue. I want to be clear about that, because it would be easy to let those figures imply more than the evidence supports.

Online listings often reach shoppers before enforcement does. What I can offer is documentation. I know what goes into my boards because I buy and use it: Titebond III on the glue lines, and Walrus Oil Cutting Board Oil and Wood Wax on the surface. The finish may contain mineral oil, beeswax, fractionated coconut oil and vitamin E, but no walnut, peanut or sesame oil. The full details are in the Care Guide.

Ask the same question about any board you are considering. If the answer is published, good. If nobody will tell you, that is an answer too.

What about bamboo?

It is important to distinguish two products that are often treated as the same. Solid bamboo boards made from glued strips are different from bamboo-melamine composites made from bamboo powder bound in plastic resin. Regulators were concerned about the second kind.

I make neither. Bamboo is a grass rather than a hardwood and contains abrasive silica, so I would expect it to be harder on a knife edge than maple or cherry. It is also light, inexpensive and does the job. If that is what you need, it is not a bad thing to buy.

Is Timbermere timber actually local?

I make the boards myself in the workshop outside Selby in North Yorkshire.

I source the timber from British suppliers.

It is not all grown in Britain.

The current range includes eight hardwoods originating across Britain and Europe, North America and South America. I use them because they give me different grain, colour, hardness and character to work with.

Canadian maple does not become Yorkshire maple simply because I cut it here.

What happens locally is the making: selecting, cutting, arranging, gluing, flattening, shaping, sanding and finishing.

For me, that is a more useful description of local craft.

The timber travels.

The making does not.

Will my board look exactly like the photograph?

No, and that is worth knowing before you order.

Solid timber varies. Two oak boards cut to the same dimensions will still have different grain, figure and colour. Timbermere product photographs show the character you can expect, not a promise that every line in the grain will match the photograph on screen.

That is part of buying something made from a natural material.

I would rather make the variation visible than pretend every board leaves the workshop looking mechanically identical.

Can an old wooden chopping board be restored?

This is where the price discussion becomes more interesting to me.

A wooden board is expected to show signs of use. Fine knife marks do not bother me, and neither does timber changing colour as it ages.

Eventually, though, a board can become deeply scored, dry, stained or slightly out of flat.

If there is still sound solid timber underneath, it can often be worked again. The surface can be flattened and resurfaced, the edges cleaned up and a fresh finish applied.

That does not make wood immortal.

It gives it another option.

I offer that work through the Timbermere Refresh Service, and the board does not have to be one I made. Old boards, inherited boards and pieces from other makers can all be assessed if they are suitable solid wood.

Sometimes photographs show me there is plenty worth saving.

Sometimes I tell the owner not to spend the postage.

Both are useful answers.

What happens if a Timbermere board goes wrong?

Repair after years of normal wear is one thing. A workmanship problem is another.

Timbermere boards have a 12-month workmanship guarantee. If a piece I made develops a genuine workmanship fault during that period, I will put it right without charging for the repair or replacement.

That matters to me because “made by one person” should mean more than having somebody's name on the About page.

There is somebody responsible for the object after it leaves the workshop too.

Refresh is different. It is a paid service for the effects of age, use and wear, including on boards made elsewhere.

The guarantee deals with my workmanship.

Refresh deals with time.

Does an expensive chopping board really save money?

People sometimes justify an expensive board with neat arithmetic.

Buy a £20 board every year, they say, and after ten years you have spent £200. Therefore, the £150 board was cheaper.

It sounds convincing because the numbers line up.

I do not think we can honestly know that.

The £20 board might last ten years. The £150 board might be abused, put in a dishwasher and crack.

For me, the better argument is not spend more now and save money later.

It is that a sound solid-hardwood board gives you the option to maintain, re-oil and eventually resurface it, rather than automatically replacing it when it starts to look used.

That is a different way of owning something.

Whether you value it is another question.

When is the cheaper chopping board the better choice?

Quite often.

If the lowest purchase price matters most, buy accordingly.

If you need something very light, a heavy butcher's block could become irritating surprisingly quickly.

If the board has to go in a dishwasher, do not buy one of mine. Buy something designed to cope with that.

If you do not particularly care about timber, who made the object, whether its surface can be renewed or whether the maker will answer your questions after the sale, I would struggle to justify spending much more.

A premium handmade hardwood board does not have to be the right product for everybody.

That is useful because it leaves us with the people for whom the differences genuinely matter.

When does spending more start to make sense?

Perhaps you cook most days and want a board that feels planted on the worktop.

Perhaps you enjoy the grain enough to leave good timber out rather than hide it in a cupboard.

Perhaps you like knowing what the surface is finished with and who made it.

Or perhaps the most important thing is simply that wear does not immediately turn the object into rubbish.

None of those things makes dinner taste better.

They change what living with the object is like.

If you use a chopping board almost every day for many years, I think that is a reasonable thing to care about.

Does handmade mean waiting weeks for a board?

Not necessarily.

Much of the Timbermere collection is kept finished and ready to ship. Individual product pages clearly state whether a board is in stock or made to order, rather than hiding the distinction until checkout.

An in-stock board is normally dispatched within one working day.

Some pieces genuinely are made to order and take longer.

I think those should be treated as two different product states, rather than pretending every handmade object requires a long wait.

You can want something made by one person without necessarily wanting to wait a month for it.

So what are you actually paying for?

Not the ability to chop an onion.

A much cheaper board can do that.

The extra money has to earn its place elsewhere: in the timber, construction, physical feel, finishing and the decisions made before the board reaches you. It also pays for things that matter later, such as somebody accountable if the workmanship goes wrong, clear care information and the possibility of bringing sound timber back to the bench after years of use.

That is the proposition.

Not cheap versus expensive.

Not mass-produced bad, handmade good.

Two different ways of buying and owning an everyday object.

If you have another board open in another tab, you now have the questions I would use to compare it with mine.

The cheaper one may still be right for you.

But at least the comparison is between more than two prices.

If you are buying for a business, perhaps for logos, staff gifts or a restaurant order, that is a different conversation. There is a page for it.

See what's on the bench

Most of the current collection is already finished. Each board lists its timber, dimensions, weight, construction and whether it is ready to ship or made to order.

See the current collection →

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