Morgan Loggins turns simple ingredients into crowd-pleasing art
STORY AND PHOTOS by Sara Schafer
With a practiced hand, Morgan Loggins folds 10 thin slices of salami into an appetizing rose. She tucks that bloom beside several rows of perfectly sliced manchego cheese. Her blank tray is transforming into a masterpiece of colors and textures — comprised of meat, cheese, fruit and nuts.
The process is almost meditative, which is a far cry from the days when she chased breaking news for six years as a TV journalist. In the years before she owned Cheese The Day KC, a charcuterie business serving the Kansas City metro area, Morgan was a burned-out reporter looking for a breather. “COVID was a crazy time to be in journalism,” she says.
To find some calm during that hectic time, Morgan started making charcuterie boards and dropping them off at friends’ houses. Growing up in eastern Iowa in the Quad Cities area, Morgan learned the value of small acts of kindness from her mother. “My mom was always the best hostess, and she taught us you don’t go to somebody’s house without gifting them something,” she says. “It was often flowers or kind of a charcuterie board.”
Morgan’s friends loved the thoughtful and delicious gifts during the shutdown, and they encouraged her to turn her new hobby into a business. The business potential and much-needed drop in deadline-inducing stress propelled Morgan to make the career shift.
Morgan launched Cheese The Day KC in the summer of 2020. Around the same time, she heard about a new winery opening in nearby Holt. Charcuterie and wine are a perfect pair, so she joined the team at Walnut Creek Winery as their general manager and later transitioned to their director of communications.
All about local
The winery provided her a commercial kitchen plus a growing customer base. Morgan quickly developed friendships and partnerships with other small businesses in the area. Their products are now featured on her boards.
“We try to use local products as much as possible, including crackers, meats and cheese,” she says. “Anything else I do try to buy at stores like Aldi, so when people like what they have they know where to go buy it.”
Boards feature cheeses from Shatto Milk Co. in Osborn, summer sausage and other cured meats from Barham Family Farm in Kearney and honey from Angle Acres in Lathrop. Depending on the size, a board can feed one or two people up to 20; they range in cost from $20 to $225. She also makes charcuterie cups, which provide individual serving sizes and cost $10.
Texture and color
Morgan loves that she can use her artistic skills while crafting boards. Prosciutto is folded to make waves, summer sausage is sliced in half moons and salami is folded into ribbon shapes. You’ll also find plenty of salami roses. “People always say the roses are too pretty — but you should just dig in,” she says.
For cheeses, Morgan will slice some into triangles then zigzag them into rows. Certain cheeses are better as cubes, and she’ll fill in little areas with cheese curds, which are a great addition for variety.
“Overall, we want it to be aesthetically pleasing,” she says. “It’s all about texture and pops of color.”
Morgan can pull a small charcuterie masterpiece together in 10 or 15 minutes, but larger ones that can feed up to 20 people can take 45 minutes to create. Beyond the boards for small groups, Morgan offers grazing tables that can feed dozens or even hundreds of people. These are often a hit for weddings or corporate events.
“For a 100-person party, we usually do a 4-foot table that’s just jam-packed full of everything,” she says. “They take a ton of prep time, but honestly those are my favorite to do.”
Feast your eyes
In 2024, Morgan sold around 6,000 charcuterie boards. The growth for Cheese The Day KC led her to step back from her full-time role at Walnut Creek Winery. Now her days are filled with making boards of all sizes for her family business. Morgan’s husband, Dustin, is a former professional baseball player who now sells synthetic turf. They have two young sons, Major and Walker.
Morgan is excited about the future. Walnut Creek Winery is opening a second location in Weston and will feature Cheese The Day KC boards.
Cheese The Day KC may have started as a way to cope with stress during COVID, but it has turned into a blossoming small business with thousands of happy customers. Morgan hopes her boards continue to bring people together in moments big and small.
To learn more about Cheese The Day KC, visit www.cheesethedaykc.com. Or sample charcuterie at Walnut Creek Winery, which is located at 90 N. Main St. in Holt.
Email Sara Schafer at sschafer@ruralmissouri.coop.