It's All About the Love... and the Cheese!

How a woman turns her love for cheese into a dream.

Featuring: Mimi Cerutti, Owner and CEO of Cerutti Charcuterie

Published on: November 7, 2023 at 8:17:39 PM

Thank you for taking the time to sit with us and share your story. Can you share a little bit about you and your company?

I'm so happy for the opportunity to share here, thank you! My name is Mimi, I'm a 45 year old woman, mama to five grown kids, Mima to three precious little ones, and an entrepreneur on a mission! My company is called Cerutti Charcuterie and I make elegant charcuterie boards and grazing tables, as well as host charcuterie making workshops at local venues around the county.

A question so many people are interested in, is how you got started. Can you share a little bit about what you were doing before this, and what that moment was like for you when you decided to start this new journey?

The first time I started my business was in 2021. I made a charcuterie board for a friend and it was so beautiful and everyone loved it so much that I started making them for every event that I attended. Soon, I started getting requests for them and so I decided to get licensed and permitted in a local kitchen. My little hobby turned passion quickly turned into a legitimate business over just several months! The problem at the time though was that I was also burning myself out in a full time corporate job and I couldn't keep up with both. Since the corporate job was paying the bills so well, I let my passion fall to the side. It felt like the right thing to do at the time, but I'll also admit that fear got in my way and I couldn't clearly see a successful path at the time. However, it was less than a year later that the corporate job fell apart and in August of this year, I decided to go ALL in on myself and my business.

Let's take a little bit of a detour, and rewind the clock a little bit. What did you want to be as a kid? And how did that influence the person you are today?

I had some of the common fantasies as a little girl - being a teacher, a model, a dancer. But even more so, I wanted to be happy, because my childhood was certainly not. I would say that I've fulfilled on some of those fantasies in ways that looked different than I thought they would, but above all, I would say that I've been on a lifelong quest for the happiness that I have today. Becoming a full time business owner and entrepreneur is the last big piece of the puzzle for me. I'm finally ready for the full manifestation of this vision and I'm here for every single bit of it.

Have you fully let go of that childhood dream? And where do you see yourself going in the next ten years?

That childhood dream has evolved into something beyond what I could see back then. I never had any examples of what success as an entrepreneur might look like, so it was beyond me. In the next 10 years, I see my business evolving into something that I can't fully see, even right now as I'm just getting restarted. What I do see though, is a business that is thriving. A business that people love to work with and for, and that has a positive impact on its people and its community. Of course I also continue to choose to see my own success, even in the face of a lot of unknown. Because my commitment to and my belief in this venture is unlike anything else that I've pursued on my career path.

Now, I have found that with successful people, there is always someone pivotal as either a mentor, parent, teacher, or someone that you look to for advise, that helped set you on this path. Could you share who that person was? And what impact that had on the person you are today?

Oh gosh, this one is hard because there have been so many! Over the past 10+ years, I have worked with several coaches and mentors that have made ALL the difference for me transforming my life. I've leaned on so many people and programs to help me rise above some of my biggest personal challenges. If I had to call one person out, I would probably say a very dear family friend who stood as a mother figure and mentor for me during some of my toughest years. Her name is Char. She saw me as someone bigger and stronger than I was able to see myself for many years. It was in her stand for me that I eventually became the woman I always wanted to be...READ MORE