An assembly of cutlery items , the assembly comprising: a nested stack of identical cutlery items, each identical cutlery item within said stack comprising a head and a handle , said identical cutlery items thus comprising respective identical heads and respective identical handles arranged in a mutually aligned relationship, a raised portion on a top surface of the cutlery handle of a first of the cutlery items in the stack and a corresponding hollow portion on a bottom portion of the cutlery handle of a second of the cutlery items in the stack being nested tightly and forming an inter-nesting feature, wherein at least a surface of the raised portion of the handle of the first cutlery item is in contiguous contact with at least a surface of the hollow of the handle of the second cutlery item; and a retaining structure for maintaining said stack in said mutually aligned relationship, said retaining structure consisting of a relatively narrow single adhesive strip , and being applied to and contact only one side of the stack ; said adhesive strip being able, in combination with said nesting of said cutlery items , to maintain said cutlery items in a close vertical association with each other, and is suitable for transporting, handling and loading the cutlery stack into the dispenser, while the horizontal integrity of the stack is maintained during bending and flexing, to achieve a stable cutlery bundle due to the nesting of the stacked cutlery handles; said retaining structure being readily removable from said stack of said identical cutlery items by pulling on a free end of said retaining structure. a nested stack of identical cutlery items, each identical cutlery item within said stack comprising a head and a handle , said identical cutlery items thus comprising respective identical heads and respective identical handles arranged in a mutually aligned relationship, a raised portion on a top surface of the cutlery handle of a first of the cutlery items in the stack and a corresponding hollow portion on a bottom portion of the cutlery handle of a second of the cutlery items in the stack being nested tightly and forming an inter-nesting feature, wherein at least a surface of the raised portion of the handle of the first cutlery item is in contiguous contact with at least a surface of the hollow of the handle of the second cutlery item; and a retaining structure for maintaining said stack in said mutually aligned relationship, said retaining structure consisting of a relatively narrow single adhesive strip , and being applied to and contact only one side of the stack ; said adhesive strip being able, in combination with said nesting of said cutlery items , to maintain said cutlery items in a close vertical association with each other, and is suitable for transporting, handling and loading the cutlery stack into the dispenser, while the horizontal integrity of the stack is maintained during bending and flexing, to achieve a stable cutlery bundle due to the nesting of the stacked cutlery handles; said retaining structure being readily removable from said stack of said identical cutlery items by pulling on a free end of said retaining structure. <EOS>