Monkeypod Jam preserves a small business and extends reach using Lenovo and Windows 11

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As the only full-time employee at Monkeypod Jam, Aletha Thomas is as small as a small business can get. But her reach extends across oceans and brings people from the mainland to the island of Kauai, her home in Hawaii for 25 years. Monkeypod originally focused on selling preserved fruit and pickled vegetables grown on the island, supplied by local farmers. It started as a project Thomas embarked on to help pay for her 2011 wedding and turned into a business that replaced her career as a teacher. Her growing team used the kitchen of a defunct fast-food restaurant to produce their small batches. Five years after they started, the growing company moved into a building that served as a storefront, tasting room and kitchen for cooking classes. At its pinnacle, 12 people were part of the team, and chefs from other islands and the mainland were flying there to guest teach classes.

The pandemic forced the shutdown of her brick-and-mortar establishment. Kauai’s lockdowns affected every business on the island. “I was in shock and trying to figure out what I could do as a business owner,” she says. “I thought, I need to keep payroll going. I need to keep my community fed. And all of a-sudden, our farmers were no longer allowed at farmers markets. We needed to help them. I made a list and that turned into a business plan for most of 2020.” Monkeypod created a coffee drive-through off the rear loading dock of Thomas’ café kitchen, which also served as the drop-off and pick-up for produce from local farmers. The company’s loyal longtime customers who lived on the mainland sponsored vegetable boxes for Kauai locals whose livelihoods had been hit hard by the shutdown. Thomas and her team also made takeout dinners while she also ran a one-room schoolhouse for her only child and several of her third-grade friends. [caption id=attachment_178287" align="alignnone" width="681]https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2023/05/monkeypod-52-681x1024.jpg Students learning how to make spam musubi[/caption] “I love the freedom you have here, opportunities to be creative and reinvent yourself,” she says. “It’s remarkable. That’s what allowed me to start Monkeypod.” In 2011, Thomas got married. In the lead-up to the wedding, her teaching hours were cut to four days a week and she was looking for a way to help pay for the ceremony and reception. She turned to her parents’ Midwest roots in preserving food and Monkeypod was born. (Monkeypod is a type of tree common to the South shore of Kauai, where Thomas lives.) It keeps evolving and iterating more than a decade later, with Thomas’ classes. One experience takes students to the farmer’s market, where they get to know what’s in season and what will be ripe in time for cooking. They sample these fruits and vegetables, take them back to the Monkeypod kitchen and make a vegetarian meal. “It’s a lot of fun and a lot of education,” says Thomas, who’s found a way to be a full-time teacher again. Head over to Monkeypod Jam to check out those classes. Lead photo: Aletha Thomas working on her Lenovo laptop at her teaching cottage

 

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