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Isle customers
stocking up
on bankrupt
grocer’s goods
A store that bought Hawaiian
By Peter Wagner
Grocery's inventory is selling
items at 2-for-1 prices and
has been swamped by buyers
Star-BulletinThe lure of cheap groceries has drawn thousands of shoppers to a dimly lit Sand Island warehouse where coffee, Clorox and dog food are being carted out the door at cut-rate prices.
"You have to know your prices," said Fred Cadiz, a Pearl City man studying an 8-ounce can of Cafe Francais last week. The instant coffee was marked "2 for $7."
"This is a good buy," he said.
Sold at a bankruptcy auction last month, the wide-ranging goods were the inventory of wholesaler Hawaiian Grocery Stores Ltd.
The company, unable to meet it's financial obligations, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, converting to a Chapter 7 liquidation in February.
Court documents show Hawaiian Grocery with $13.8 million in assets and $13.5 million in debts. The documents also say Hawaiian Grocery owed $2.6 million in principal on a $10 million loan made by Coast Business Credit, a division of California-based Southern Pacific Bank.
Stepping in to buy the $1 million inventory at about 20 cents on the dollar was Brandon's Aloha Country Store, a small Ewa grocer open on weekends.
Brandon's -- "BACS" -- has been selling the goods from the 68,000-square-foot Hawaiian Grocery warehouse at 80 Sand Island Access Road since the March 4 auction.
A spokesman at BACS said the products will be moved to a permanent location -- another BACS store to open on Middle Street -- next month. Plans are to close the warehouse sale May 2.
Meanwhile, about 500 customers are turning up at the makeshift store each day, attracted by large newspaper advertisements of a "bankruptcy/liquidation sale" offering savings of 50 percent to 80 percent.
Among bargain-hunters in the cavernous aisles last week was Ann, a 65-year-old Kaimuki woman who didn't offer her last name.
"Some of these prices are comparable to grocery stores but this is a good price," she said, peering at a $1 jar of Hawaiian Kukui guava jelly.
Nearby, jugs of Clorox were marked "2 for $3," half-gallons of Ohana shoyu "2 for $3" and Folger's whole bean coffee, 12 ounces, "2 for $7."
A woman with a toddler in her basket started off with a box of Kellogg's Razzle Dazzle. Pausing to read the label, she put the box back. "It expired in November," she said.
She chose another box of cereal -- all were marked $1.99.
Working the cash register at a makeshift counter was Lee Gallegos whose company, LGL Corp., also works the bankruptcy circuit to turn a profit off the inventories of distressed companies.
"It was crazy in here when we first opened last month," she said. "It was kind of like Costco."
