TheBuzz Erika Engle

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COURTESY DIAMOND BAKERY CO. Diamond Bakery Co.'s retail store on South King Street is pictured during the 1930s. The store sold freshly baked crackers and cookies as well as many varieties of candies.

At 85, still a family bakery

Diamond Bakery Co. is celebrating its 85th anniversary this month with plans to use its Hawaiian-sea-animal-shaped crackers as a bridge to reef conservation education.

A private party at the Metropolitan YMCA on Pali Highway today will treat 100 kids to games and a reef conservation discussion led by KGMB-TV weather anchor Guy Hagi. The crackers also will be included in kids' meals at KFC's Hawaii restaurants.

Diamond Bakery products, including soda crackers, saloon pilot crackers and graham crackers are so familiar -- iconic, even -- that it is difficult to imagine a world in which the founders struggled just to become a startup.

In 1921, banks were unwilling to finance the business dreams of a trio of Japanese immigrants: Hidegoro Murai, Kikutaro Hiruya and Natsu Muramoto.

"A woman named McIntyre, she was the one that helped them arrange for financing for the company, securing loans," said President Brent Kunimoto. "The founding members paid them all off, but without her helping out, who knows?"

Its shareholders include members of the founders' families beyond the third generation, a rarity, since family businesses often collapse or get sold around the third generation.

COURTESY DIAMOND BAKERY CO. Diamond Bakery employees wait for customers at the South King Street store in the 1930s.

Diamond Bakery's longevity is due to the founders' vision, Kunimoto said.

"You have to make money to survive and continue to make affordable tasty treats for the people of Hawaii, but they had the wherewithal to keep growing and investing in property ... and buying equipment that nobody had on the island," Kunimoto said. They invested in the future and "the future got realized."

Diamond Bakery started out making bread, crackers and other products, but the right cracker recipes didn't materialize until the company hired Sam Dunphy "from another company that made crackers and bread," Kunimoto said.

We now know that company as Love's Bakery.

Dunphy "taught Diamond Bakery how to make these great crackers. Diamond Bakery quit making bread and the bread company quit making crackers," Kunimoto laughed. "One person can make a huge difference."

However, Kunimoto says humility plays a big role in current company culture. "We try to look to each person to be just as empowered and just as important at sharing heartwarming aloha in their own way."

The longevity is also due to the families' decision in the mid-1970s to bring in professional management to run the business and make it grow, he said. It was an unusual move back then, he noted.

The company now makes more than 75 products including signature snacks for which formulas "have remained the same for decades." However, health trends have led to new lines of whole-wheat, low-sodium, no-cholesterol and zero-trans-fat snacks.

Hawaii ingredients are also key in some products, such the Maui sugar graham crackers and the Maui sugar cookies.

The bakery's goodies are sold by local retailers, in commissaries, some mainland stores and coffee kiosks and the Web.

Diamond Bakery has long participated in local events such as the Made in Hawaii Festival and Food and New Products Shows, but in January it will take a big step with its first turn as an exhibitor at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. Retail buyers from around the country attend and make deals.

"We're 85 years young, but we're infants when it comes to being known on the mainland," Kunimoto said.

Diamond Bakery lost a worthy competitor when the venerable Hilo Macaroni Factory closed in 2003 for lack of a family member to continue the business.

The closure had no impact on Diamond Bakery's non-Big Island business, Kunimoto said, but on the Big Island, most of Hilo Macaroni's devotees made the switch. The companies were about neck and neck in market share before the closing, he said.

Diamond Bakery says it enjoys 40 percent of Hawaii's soda cracker market share and 15 percent of overall cracker sales.

The Diamond Bakery 13-ounce soda cracker tray will "outsell anything, cookie or cracker," said Kunimoto. The company sells millions of trays each year.

The company's products have multi-generational appeal as kupuna remember them from younger days and treat grandchildren to similar goodies. Favorite recipes and treasured memories are on the Diamond Bakery Web site at www.diamondbakery.com.