Above: Pretty Perfect’s Maggie Heyworth began making her own pimento cheese after a local store changed its recipe. (Mike Kittrell/Alabama NewsCenter)

When Maggie Heyworth moved from her native Virginia to the Gulf Coast town of Loxley in 2007, she quickly discovered that Southern hospitality Alabama-style included many invitations to dinner and parties. Not wanting to show up empty-handed to these social gatherings, Heyworth often brought along her homemade pimento cheese as a gift.

After a while, Heyworth began receiving requests for the jalapeno-flavored dish from friends and casual acquaintances. One day a woman she barely knew told her, “I hate pimento cheese, but I love yours. If you don’t start selling it, you’re crazy.”

“That was the sentence that launched the ship,” Heyworth recalled. “I thought, why not?”

That was four years ago, and this spark of an idea has grown into a full-fledged business called Pretty Perfect Cheese. Heyworth’s pimento cheese is sold in about 150 stores across 15 states, mostly in the Southeast but also in Indiana, Oklahoma and Colorado.

This has been a completely unexpected adventure for Heyworth. She worked as an investment adviser in Virginia, and began making pimento cheese only after a local store where she had been buying it changed its recipe to what Heyworth described as “dreamsicle orange mush.”

“I was a late-comer to the kitchen, but I thought I could make my own (pimento cheese),” Heyworth said. “So I got a grater out and grated my knuckles along with the cheese, and I kept playing with the recipe. That’s really how I got started with this.”

An appetizer made with Pretty Perfect Cheese Sun Dried Tomato and Lemon Zest rolled in dried apples. Maggie Heyworth’s pimento cheese is sold in approximately 150 stores across 15 states, mostly in the southeast but also in Indiana, Oklahoma and Colorado. (Mike Kittrell/Alabama NewsCenter)

Heyworth moved to Alabama following the death of her husband. She was retired from her job, had friends in the Gulf Coast area, and decided it was time for a change of scenery. Other than that, she had no specific plans.

But once the idea took hold to begin packaging and selling her pimento cheese, Heyworth became busier than ever. There were many issues she had never considered, such as having her product tested so the calories and other nutritional information could be placed on the label.

“Once you make a decision like this, you’re ready to go but everything else starts flowing like glue,” Heyworth said.

She finally began production through a commercial kitchen available for half-day use at Windmill Market in Fairhope. Her first account was with Allegri Farm Market in Daphne. Before long, she had 14 accounts from Mobile to Seaside, and her days were starting well before sunrise.

An appetizer made with Pretty Perfect Cheese pancetta and horseradish on baguette slices. Maggie Heyworth’s pimento cheese is sold in approximately 150 stores across 15 states, mostly in the southeast but also in Indiana, Oklahoma and Colorado. (Mike Kittrell/Alabama NewsCenter)

“I was having to resupply some of my accounts multiple times a week,” Heyworth said. “I was getting up at 3:30 a.m., prepping ingredients and grating cheese because it got to the point that I couldn’t do it all in four hours in the incubator kitchen.”

Heyworth found a co-packer to help her, then struck a deal with Gourmet Foods International to expand distribution. The Mobile office of Lewis Communications assisted with branding and social-media marketing, which Heyworth said has been “a fantastic help.”

Now, instead of spending her days in the kitchen, Heyworth is acting more as CEO, overseeing her rapidly expanding creation. She might be heading in the direction blazed in the 1990s by Patricia Barnes, who began baking her now-famous Sister Schubert rolls from home in Troy.

“It is a lot of hard work. It’s a full-time job,” Heyworth said. “There is a big difference between a hobby and a business. This really does your full-time attention. But it’s been fun. As soon as it stops being fun, I’m not going to do it anymore. But right now I’m really enjoying it.”