Hawaii imports most of its beef, but a start-up ranching and slaughtering company hopes to boost the production and consumption of island-raised meat.
The company, Hawaii Meats, is attempting in its still relatively small-scale way to encourage more ranchers to produce cattle locally from farm to table.
Although 90% of the beef consumed by Hawaii's residents is imported, many ranchers send their 4-month-old calves to the mainland for further grazing, where the animals are then slaughtered and consumed.
The upside-down system developed with the increased use of ethanol, which drove up the price of corn and made it much more expensive to import to the islands as feed.
Gov. David Ige is pushing to double Hawaii's food production by 2030, yet the $564 million industry has been decreasing for decades.
In 2007 the state produced 136 million pounds of food, down from 190 million in 2000, according to a report by Hana Hou, the magazine of Hawaiian Airlines, which added that beef accounts for 6.1%, worth $34 million.
Hawaii Meats buys cattle from various several small-scale ranchers, which are then slaughtered at a facility on Oahu. It also operates its own ranch on Kauai and can process 50 cows a day.
While Bobby Farias, president of Hawaii Meats, had made other attempts to break into the meat production business, it was only in 2014, after a meeting with Florida investment consultant Jack Beuttel, that he found a way to make it work, according to the magazine.
The consultant advised the rancher to consider a “vertically integrated” operation involved in all aspects of the chain, from pasture to package. This, it was argued, would keep cattle bred in the state being consumed in Hawaii and promote “land stewardship, holistic management and renewable energy,” Hana Hou reports.
In another issue for meat producers, those farming smaller animals, including pigs sheep and goats, are also being squeezed after the island's main specialty meat slaughterhouse stopped processing them.
Farmers previously used Kulana Foods to slaughter and process their small animals at a site in Hilo. The company suspended the slaughtering of small animals indefinitely after being cited twice by regulators for inhumane practices.