The Red Monkey Story
Years ago, an exquisite and rare red monkey sat peering over the plentiful harvest of spices. He found himself incredibly distressed that the beautiful and magnificent bounty of his native Spice Islands was not being widely distributed to the people of the world. He knew that people, like he and his fellow monkeys, love good food. Red Monkeys live in groups of up to 100, they like to stay active and make food a social event. His community of monkeys also liked to incorporate the young into daily life. This little monkey wanted to make those ideas more accessible to people. He wanted people to know of the decadent, gourmet spices that his land produced. He wanted to encourage knowing your neighbor and bonding over food. In addition, this monkey would never discriminate in distributing his spices; he welcomed old and young alike to share in the culinary wonders of his Spice Islands. In fact, he envisioned the young being led by adults into the kitchen to prepare flavorful, healthy food.
So the little monkey set out on a quest to find a way to accomplish his goals. He knew he would stop at nothing to share with the world what his home had to offer. He rode across the deserts of his native Africa on camelback, backpacked across Europe, stopping to see Big Ben, and climbed atop the Great Wall of China to survey Asia. No luck. He sailed the seas to get to the Outback of Australia, decided the language barrier was too great with the penguins and crossed Antarctica off his list. He caught a ride on a humpback whale to South America and explored the rainforests, but he still could not find that magical place for which he was looking. He cruised up the Pacific coast, Mexico was too hot, Canada was too cold, the United States looked ok, but still, he felt no magic.
He was bummed and decided to go meandering to clear his head. What was he going to do now? The gilla monsters in the southwest frightened him, and the seagulls had no appreciation for fine food. The hurricanes in the southeast were too destructive, the ice in the north was too slippery, and the high altitudes of the Rocky Mountains made him faint. So many beautiful places and none would be a good home. He was heartbroken. As he was walking through the cornfields of Missouri, he stumbled across an equally distraught gentleman. Being the polite monkey that he is, he inquired about the man’s plight. As luck would have it, this man was the answer to the poor monkey’s problem! The man had the same ambitions as the monkey. When the monkey heard this, his tail twitched with excitement. The two visionaries struck out together to revolutionize the spice and food world and Red Monkey Foods was born!