We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Megan Carpenter a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Megan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

I have always been a bit of a Renaissance woman. I like to explore and do many things. However, two things have remained constant. I have always been an athlete, and I have always made jam. I have been in the gym 6-7 days a week since I was a teen, and started making jam with my family when I was 3-years-old. Physical activity and jam making have always been a part of my life, and are now continued into my professions. I came up with the name of Jacked Jams with one of my dear friends Alex after Muay Thai practice one day. He came up with the idea of making a berry look jacked, flexing in some way for the logo. Later on I gave the idea to my graphic designer, Andreas Kremer, and he made the idea come to life! I decided on Jacked Jams for the name because the alliteration sounded great, and because I felt like it was a great representation of my two lives!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

If you told me 2 years ago that I would be running my own jam business, I would call you crazy! I never had the intention of selling it. As I said, I started making jam with my family since I was about 3 years old. Growing up it was a tradition with my mom to give out jam over the holidays. We would also give it away to my teachers, neighbors, friends etc. for all sorts of occasions. Our family was so well known for it. I continued this tradition on my own through college. People would tell me all the time that I should sell it. I would always tell them no. After college I moved back up to Baltimore, I was working at a farmers market for Mount Royal Soaps in Fells Point (more on that later). One of my best friends, Patrick Wesley, who was also working at the market for his BBQ business, fell in love with my jam. He is such an amazing hype man. Patrick really advocated for me to start selling it. He started putting my hot pepper jam on his brisket at the market and people were raving about it!!! They were selling out of it so fast I couldn’t keep up with the demand. He gave me so much confidence in my ability and in my product that I decided to go for it. I was always hesitant because I was afraid that turning it into work would take the passion out of it, but it has done the exact opposite! I also didn’t go to business school or anything like that. I actually majored in German with a minor in sustainability! I often feel like I am flying by the seam of my pants, and have no idea what I am doing. However, I come from a family of excellent salespeople, and even had a small jewelry business when I was younger called Megan Makes Em’. Similarly, I feel like a lot of my personality traits set me up well for being a start up entrepreneur. I am very friendly, driven, creative, and ballsy. I am great with people, and business is all about the people. I have also learned so much from my fellow local business owners. I had mentioned Mount Royal Soaps earlier. I used to (and still do occasionally) do sales for them. One of their owners, Matt Williams, really took me under his wing and turned me into a sales monster. He taught me everything I know about running a small business, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.

There are many things about Jacked Jams that I think sets me apart from other brands. The branding is so lively and colorful, and the mash-up between jam and fitness is very unique. However, what sets me apart the most is the Jacked Jams Fight Team. The Jacked Jams Fight Team is something I created in order to give back to the community. I have been around the fight world for a long time and there are a lot of fighters that can’t afford to train the way they want to. Fighting is expensive! Paying for everything from the trainers, the gym memberships, and the equipment, to the medicals, the travel expenses, tournament fees, etc. really adds up. A lot of fighters can’t afford to train full time, and training full time is really important if they want to become professional, and actually “make it” as a professional. In the age of information, the competition and world of martial arts has been growing exponentially. I wanted to help these athletes achieve their dreams, so I created the Jacked Jams Fight Team. I am going to change up the way I do this soon, but right now I sponsor fighters through a subscription. Basically, people buy the Fight Team Subscription, and that money goes towards sponsoring fighters. When I sponsor a fighter, they get free jam, merch, and some cash to help pay for their needs. I also try my best to help them advertise for their fights and to sell tickets. In exchange, the fighters represent my brand. They make posts on their social media, wear my logo on their walkout shirts, fight shorts, etc. I have gotten a lot of followers and attention from it, so it has been beneficial for the business as well! I have made a lot of cool friends and connections as well. I am a fighter as well. I just had my first boxing fight back in August. My first fight was really eye-opening to all of the hardships fighters go through. I truly believe that fighting makes you a better person. It makes you face primal fear, and helps you see who you really are when everyone is watching and everything is on the line.

I am most proud of taking many leaps of faith in 2022 and 2023. I started jacked jams, stepped into ring for the first time as an amateur boxer, fulfilled a dream of becoming an indoor cycling instructor, and traveled across the world to Thailand where I trained Muay Thai for 6 weeks and started the Jacked Jams Fight Team. All of those things seemed like a shot in the dark, a pipe dream even. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I had faith I would figure it out and that things would work themselves out- and so far they have! They haven’t all been wins. I lost my fight, and have made a lot of mistakes in learning how to run a business- but all of those losses and mistakes have made me so much better of a person, fighter, and entrepreneur. I am a believer that given the right mindset, failure breeds success.

I want my customers to know, that is cheesy as it sounds, that I make every batch of Jacked Jams with lots and lots of LOVE! I refuse to make jam in a bad mood. I have had many people tell me that they “can taste the love and care”. I like to think that you can too. As I like to say as for my catch-phrase, STAY JACKED BALTIMORE!

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

Yes, I make my products. I learned how to make jam from my Grandmother, Dotty Carpenter (she just turned 90!) and my Mother, Missy Carpenter. We had a family tradition of going out to Baugher’s orchard every May to hand pick strawberries. We would make a whole day of it. We would start the day by going out to Baughers to pick the berries, followed by ice cream, processing the berries (meaning washing, cutting off the stems, mashing, and measuring), making the jam, letting them cool, and sealing them with gulf wax. I continue with the same process today, except I no longer hand-pick the berries, and I now use a hot seal rather than the old-fashioned wax seal. I now use a hot seal because it is more shelf stable, although I do love the nostalgia of the wax. I still always go to hand pick fruit often, but I cannot keep up with the demand. Currently, I wholesale all my fruit from local farms such as Baugher’s, Weber’s Farm, Agriberry Farms, Albright Farms, etc. Using local fruit that is in season is absolutely essential for the flavor of the jam. Over the summer I will buy 40-50 lbs of peaches, process all of them, and freeze the rest so I can make local, farm-fresh quality jam all year round. I ran out of freezer room this year- and had to buy a second one!! Anyway, I stay as local as possible when it comes to my ingredients. Even my sugar and spices are Maryland based, coming from McCormick spices and Domino’s Sugar. The only fruit that I have to source non-locally are my passion fruit and pineapples. While jam making is simple, it is also complex. Every fruit has a different amount of natural pectin, PH level, water content etc. I have experimented and failed a lot. All of my best flavors have come from experiments. My most unique flavor is called Maryland Summer. It is a hot pepper jam with old bay spices, sweet corn, and barbecue sauce. The goal was to capture the essence of a Maryland crab feast in a jam- and I believe I have done just that. I make each batch myself. Over the past three months alone I have made over 1,500 jars of jam. One batch of jam yields 9-12 jars. I also teach 7 fitness classes a week, have multiple personal training clients, am in the gym for myself daily. It is a busy and chaotic life, but a fun one at that. I always make the joke of being all jammed out after a long week of production. While I started the business in 2022, I didn’t really get going until this year. I still have a long road ahead of me and a lot to learn. I still operate under cottage law out of my house, but look forward to future expansion. The small business community is full of wonderful people, and I love asking questions and gaining insight from other local business owners. Some of my favorite small business mentors have been Matt Williams over at Mount Royal Soaps, and Chefs Emily and Roz over at Diablo Doughnuts.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

One of my favorite marketing stories is actually how I met my logo/ character designer Andreas Kremer- who referred me to you all!! I care a lot about sustainability and the earth. Since I am also a coach/ personal trainer- every year I have a tradition of letting my clients get revenge on me on Earth Day by picking up trash. The rule is that I will do as many push ups for as many pieces of trash that myclients/friends pick up on Earth Day. I post it all over instagram. One year while I was doing the challenge, Andreas somehow discovered the challenge through the grapevine. He ended up seeing my story and participating in the challenge all the way from Colorado!!! He made some really funny posts about it and picked up a whopping 300+ pieces of trash!!!! Thanks Andreas!!!! Haha- I ended up having to do 1,021 push ups that year, and I have been working with Andreas ever since. I fell in love with his energy and loved his artwork. His talent jumped off the page. I wanted to figure out how I could support his work, and I also needed a logo for jacked jams!!! He captured everything that I am in one little logo- jam, exercise, and a little bit of hippie. Andreas has helped me with so many things, from making my flavor characters, all the way to my website design. He is a wonderful friend and we haven’t even met in person yet! He is from Baltimore, so he comes home from time to time, but we have somehow managed to miss each other each time. He is so easy and fun to work with. He really knows how to take a vision and bring it to life, will make any adjustments I want without additional charge, he’s very affordable, just everything! Go check out his instagram, podcasts, website, and his beautiful girlfriend Reina who is also a wonderful artist! @andreasdoesart
@artt_lunaa
www.andreasdoesart.com

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jackedjamsllc.com
• Instagram: @jackedjams

Image Credits
Rip Goodman @ripgoodmanphoto -photography Andreas Kremer @andreasdoesart -logo, webdesign, characters