Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 12, Number 9, 1 Kepakemapa 1995 — Teaming up to sell taro [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Teaming up to sell taro

by Patrick Johnston The taro industry in Hawai'i is not in good shape. Sources in the industry say small farmers have difficulty making a profit growing the product while supermarket staff are chased down aisles hy desperate shoppers anxious to get their hands on what little poi is availahle for

sale. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of taro passes through Hawai'i from international ports on its way to Mainland markets while Hawai'i farmers eke out a living selling to a limited, often fluctuating market in Hawai'i. The taro situation is critical but may have found a savior in two Hawaiian entrepreneurs who have formed an informal partnership to promote taro consumption in the islands. Aimoku McClellan and Vonn Logan are likely familiar names to anyone try- • • • • - — 3 —

ing to get poi home delivery. McClellan owns and operates Hō'ai (known also as The Poi Man), an 0'ahu-based food delivery company that sells poi and a number of other food products under the brand Hō'ai. Vonn Logan runs

I Pa'i'ai Poi, a countertop poi proI cessing and taro retailer who delivI ers out of his Lā'ie home. The two i have pooled their talents and experiI enee together in an attempt, to not I only improve the availability and

quality of poi sold in the islands, but also to introduce a variety of tarobased products and increase taro consumption. The two companies - whieh are not legally tied in any way - are ide-

ally matched: The Poi Man has a large client base and delivery capabilities but needs taro to supply the poi demands of his clients. Vonn's Pa'i'ai Poi - with extensive ties to loeal farmefs around the state - has the taro but not the large market.

"We're not partners in the legal sense," says MeOellan, "but we do a lot better together than apart. It is the

strength of cooperation. ... If I had to get farmers' trust and deal with getting taro from field to mill I couldn't afford it. The only way to do it economically is to work with Vonn." MeOellan heard about Logan through an associate but ran into him by ehanee. "I was in a restaurant and Vonn walked in. I told him all I need is 20 pounds of poi a week. By September we will be producing 6,500 pounds of finished product a week." But poi is only part of the picture. Growing taro for poi

alone makes poor business sense because demand is so irregular. Summer - with its family reunions and lū'au - is the big season for poi but it is also the time of the year when taro supply is down. When supply is up in the fall and winter, demand drops off. Farmers either have too little or too mueh. To get around this problem Logan and

McClellan have worked together to introduce new taro and poi products to retailers. "We feel there is tremendous potential for taro," McClellan explains. "We want to create new ways of using the product." One of their recent creations - sold

under the Hō'ai brand name - is frozen pa'i'ai (undiluted poi). The product ean be heated up in a microwave making preparation fast and convenient. To get around the problem of waiting for it to eool, the instructions direct consumers to add iee instead of water to dilute it.

The product tastes the same as regular '"X. poi but ean be stored for longer

periods, both by the vendor and the shopper, avoiding Wwk. pr°blems of shortages

, and oversupply. "We're | trying to make it more fi convenient and accesm sible," says Logan. W The two have also īj introduced kulolo and a frozen kalo pa'a (diced

taro), and have added some variety to the "Wai'anae Diet" with a vegetarian laulau made with taro and loeal seasonings. "We have to help farmers break away from the demand cycle for poi," says McClellan. "That's why you make a

variety of taro products, to even out the demand cycle. ... Looking at taro production as only for poi is detrimental to its production. We want to give farmers a reason to grow taro." The farmer however, is only one side of the taro equation. The two are also interested in creating convenient and inexpensive foods that have appeal in today's consumer market. Logan explains, "We are trying to introduce accessible and palatable ways of eating taro." Traditional poi is still a mainstay in

their product line. The product they sell, however, is undiluted and looks, tastes and feels more like what poi did 50 years ago. "We wanted to bring the original product back to the market," says Logan. To produce the poi, MeOelIan eontacted a Hilo business man who owned a small, inoperative piekle factory. He convinced the owner to convert the factory into a poi mill, then contracted Logan to teach him the ins and outs of producing poi. "We (Logan and MeOellan) established an agreement with him to process our product. ... That was really something. His business was having a rough time and there was no way I could afford to finance a mill."

The taro is supplied largely by farms in the Waipi'o valley, although if necessary Logan ean bring in produce from Maui and Moloka'i. Logan and MeOellan initially began marketing their taro and poi products through home delivery but quickly began looking at selling them to retailers. They got their first break when Wai'anae Store owner Ken Okamoto agreed to put their pa'i'ai on Wai'anae Store shelves and give it some prominenee. For 30 days he ran a special on the product. The number of retailers now selling their products has jumped to 19 on O'ahu with more than 20 on the Big Island. The shops that sell the Hō'ai line are old names - Times, Nānākuli Super, Maili's - that are familiar to the loeal community. "Our market strategy is to keep things traditional," says Logan. Hō'ai also sells to the Mainland, but at this point only in bulk shipments to specific customers like restaurants that serve Hawaiian food. McClellan hopes in the next few months to establish a relationship with a Mainland distributor so Hō'ai products ean find their way onto retail shelves. For more information about Hō'ai or Pa'i'ai products eall (808) 682-1010 or (808) 293- 1721.

Hawaiian entrepreneurs join forces to revitalize Hawai'i's taro industry

"We're not partners in the legal sense but we do a lot better together than apart. It is the strength of cooperation." Aimoku McClellan

Hō'ai Vice President Dorien McClellan (left) and secretary Ruth Pane'e in Hō'ai's Campbell lndustrial Park office.

Pa'i'ai Poi's Vonn Logan and Ho'ai's Aimoku McClellan show off some of their latest poi products. Photos by Patrick Johnston