Kokua Market has seen many changes from its small beginnings at the 1200 block of Kapiolani Boulevard (black-and-white below), to its current location at King Street, above.
Kokua Market has seen many changes from its small beginnings at the 1200 block of Kapiolani Boulevard (black-and-white below), to its current location at King Street, above.
This weekend Kokua Market Natural Foods Co-op - a lot larger but none the worse for shoppers' wear - hosts a silver anniversary celebration/open house. The event features food and health demonstrations, food samplings, anniversary specials, entertainment and children's activities.
Six people met in 1970 to organize the co-op, recalled Hazel Twelker, a founding member with unbroken participation in the market. It opened at a modest Kapiolani Boulevard storefront.
Originally, a person paid $5 and volunteered for three hours monthly to qualify for up to 35 percent discounts on organic vegetables and fruits, bulk cheeses, loose beans, grains, nuts, spices, teas and other products.
"Back then, managers and workers were all volunteers," Twelker said.
Subsequently, the store changed names - from Kokua Country Foods - and sites - to the corner of Beretania and Isenberg in the early 1970s, then to its present site at 2643 S. King St. several years ago.
Today members pay a refundable $150 to buy shares. The store is open to the public and charges everyone the same prices, except that members receive discounts at the cash register.
"Coops are created to give people some economic independence," general manager Brad Salmon said. "One of the purposes of a co-op is to keep prices as low as we can. So one of the biggest differences between us and say, a Safeway or Foodland, is that no single person is going to get rich off of this."
John McLauchlin, produce manager at the co-op in Moiliili
restocks some foods in the organic section of the store.
Neubauer salutes Kokua's focus on providing sound nutritional food for the community and its success as a co-op and natural foods store that "has grown larger and come to embrace the community."
He calls the 2,400-square-foot establishment a "middle-sized store or a small large store" with $2.5 million in annual gross sales and a paid staff of 27.
A burgeoning produce section offers organics, such as Halloween pumpkins for 45 cents a pound; pie pumpkins for $1.49; gorgeous bunches of bok choy, or white-stemmed Asian cabbage, for $1.19 a pound; and shiitake mushrooms for $13.49 a pound.
"Kauai Strawberry" solo papayas and Ka'u oranges sell for 99 cents a pound, and Sharwil avocados $1.49 a pound.
Everyday prices for other organics include bananas for 75 cents a pound, Valencia oranges for 99 cents, broccoli for $1.49, green cabbage for 75 cents, and red or russet potatoes for 59 cents.
Delicatessen specials feature roasted organic sesame tahini, chipati, low-fat tortillas, Frederiko's salsa from Windward Oahu, and cooked Hanalei lehua taro. Deli fast foods offer containers of Cashew Pasta prepared with garlic, eggplant and tomato paste for $2.60, plus $2.99 Gardenburgers, $2.89 teri tofu burgers, and $2.89 avocado cheese sandwiches.
T-shirts are part of the inventory.
Twelker, a community organizer with a master's degree in counseling, said she likes the environmental and socially conscious decision-making processes of a co-op. For example, the herbal shampoo section sums up the Kokua experience: Shoppers can bring their own empty plastic bottles and fill them with Rainwater herbal awapuhi shampoo at $2.89 a pound - finally! a recyclable use for those empty shampoo bottles.
Gerald Reardon, executive director of the John Howard Society, has belonged to Kokua for 24 of its 25 years and still does most of his shopping there.
"We're interested in good food. We're particular about our food," he said. "Also, we like the co-op idea, the fact that I can tell one of the staff or pick up the phone and tell one of the board members, 'Hey, our store needs this or that.' It's not like Foodland."
Reardon's favorites include oat cakes and bulk items, such as dried beans, granola, peanut butter, honey and spices.
"They've got a big selection and you can try a handful of something, or you can usually ask somebody there, 'What do you do with this?' I guess my wife and I are kind of adventurous eaters. We like to try new things."
Saturday , 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Food demonstrations/samplings, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; entertainment: harp and flute, 11 a.m. to noon; random cowboys, 3 to 5 p.m.; children's face painting, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and origami 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Also naturopathic, acupuncture and Chinese medicine demonstrations
Food demonstrations, 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; food samplings, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; children's face painting, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Also therapy painting, acupuncture and herbal medicine demonstrations