Michael Forte, Jr. and Charlotte Forte

C&M Food Distributing was started in 1988 by Michael Forte, Sr. Michael Sr. had long worked for a broad-line food distributor that was sold to a big company that year, and when he found the new owner's business practices weren't compatible with his own, he decided it was time to strike out in a new direction.

The new venture was to be a family affair. Michael Sr. immediately enlisted the help of his son, Michael Jr., and his wife Charlotte. Charlotte was employed in the legal field as an office manager, and it was her salary that supported the family while her husband and son worked to get the business off the ground. She also did the company’s books after hours.

“That first year was tough,” Charlotte recalls. She remembers Michael Jr. changing his clothes at least twice a day. He would wear jeans while delivering and then put on slacks and a tie to sell, and then return to the office and change again to do warehouse work. Michael Jr. remembers that his father didn’t take a paycheck for over a year. “He just put all the money back into the business to get it going.”

The sacrifices and hard work paid off. Today, C&M Food Distributing, Inc., is a major regional distributor with twenty-six employees. In 1990, Charlotte quit her job with the law firm and came to work full-time at C&M as the office manager. Michael Sr. retired in 1997.