RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — A Riviera Beach charcuterie company is getting the national spotlight.
The company, called Boarderie, made Oprah Winfrey's Favorite Things of 2022 list.
It’s not hard to see why. Aaron Menitoff and Rachel Solomon, Co-founders of “Boarderie,” gave WPTV a closer look at the coveted charcuterie board.
“This is a wine-infused cheese, this is a goat cheese with rose petals, really interesting flavors that you couldn’t get at your local grocery store,” said Solomon.
Those artisan cheeses are just two of the 35 components that make up the array of meats, nuts, dried fruits, jam, olives and crackers.
“I mean, we’re sourcing these things from England, Spain, Italy,” said Menitoff. “We source all of them all year, and the management team, we’ve all been to different parts of Europe multiple times this summer sourcing these products.”
Menitoff and his wife, Julie Menitoff, started the charcuterie company, formerly known as Cheeseboarder, back in 2020, when the pandemic stalled their special events business.
“It literally stopped our entire business in its tracks. We panicked. We had to figure something out to be able to keep the staff employed and generate income so we came up with this concept,” said Menitoff.
They went from catering to shipping charcuterie realizing the meat and cheese plates were quickly growing in popularity.
“In the culinary space, cheese and charcuterie were one of the fastest growing trends. We noticed everyone was doing these gift baskets, so we designed a process where we could create a board that could be shipped nationwide overnight.”
Now, two years later, Menitoff and Solomon said getting recognition from Winfrey is humbling.
“It’s really surreal. I mean, it's been an adventure and it’s been something we’ve been talking about,” said Menitoff.
“We had seen lots of other brands that had been on Oprah’s list, it was something we were really intrigued by and really hoping to be included in. And then, one day they just reached out to us,” said Solomon.
“We’re you know, really excited to see the trajectory that the Oprah effect has,” Menitoff added.
A big part of the process is keeping the ingredients fresh. Menitoff, Solomon and the team showed WPTV inside their food safety storage facility, where they keep dozens of pounds of cheese and fresh meats, which don’t stay in the refrigerators long.
“They’re cut fresh and shipped the next day,” said Menitoff.
Angel Gerez, Boarderie’s COO, also plays a crucial part in picking out the artisan ingredients.
“I was a sommelier in Italy, I was working for ten years in a three-Michelin star restaurant in Florence and I learned a lot about cheeses and wines over there. When I came to the United States, I had a great opportunity to become a part of this company,” said Gerez.
Gerez also has a background in engineering. In addition to helping source all the cheeses Boarderie uses he also helped design the efficient production process, which now allows the company to ship more than three thousand boards in an eight-hour day.
“We live, eat and breathe Boarderie. We love it,” said Menitoff.
To date, Boarderie has shipped out around 60,000 boards to both individual customers and even businesses, some of which include big tech companies.
“We’re doing hundreds of these every month, just for different corporations. We have a lot of local support and we’re just having a blast doing it,” said Minetoff. "We couldn’t have better partners, better staff, or have more fun doing what we're doing. So, we’re stoked.”
Boarderie’s latest charcuterie board even has Oprah’s signature on it.
If you’d like to check out the holiday list for yourself, click here.