STAR-BULLETIN FILE / 1999
A giant crane claw drops a load of newly cut sugar cane into the hopper outside the Gay & Robinson mill.
Kauai’s Gay & Robinson
making sweet comebackSugar output is increasing and
the company plans to release
a finished product under
its own label in 2004
The future is looking a little sweeter for Gay & Robinson Inc.
The last surviving sugar plantation on Kauai is reaping near-record crops and plans to enter into a new era in the coming year by releasing a finished sugar product under its own label.
After several years of falling sugar prices and expansion and diversification costs, sugar on Kauai is making a comeback driven by the Robinson family, whose landholdings encompass 51,000 acres in a pie-shaped wedge, stretching from the ocean to Mount Waialeale.
STAR-BULLETIN FILE / 2002
Gay & Robinson GM Alan Kennett sees a bright outlook.
The coming year could be the most important yet for Gay & Robinson. The sugar season recently ended with the company reporting a 55,254-ton crop, said General Manager Alan Kennett, who estimates tonnage will surpass that into the new year and beyond. Increases of 32 percent to 73,000 tons are expected by 2005, largely due to expanding cane fields. Gay & Robinson's largest-ever crop was 57,000 tons in 1987.
The plantation is in the process of expanding nearly 7,500 acres of cane fields and has realized its first harvest from lands planted after the Amfac plantation closed two years ago.
Also, a new contract with California and Hawaiian Sugar Co. will allow the company to refine and sell up to 10,000 tons of sugar under its own label. In the past, the company was locked into selling all its raw sugar to C&H, which was founded in 1906 and operated from 1921 to 1993 as an agricultural cooperative marketing association owned by the member sugar companies in Hawaii. In 1993, the member companies sold their interests in C&H to Alexander & Baldwin Inc. in Honolulu, and the refining company's status changed from a cooperative to a corporation. A&B subsequently sold its majority share to an investment group in 1998, retaining a 40 percent common stock interest.
The C&H refinery at Crockett, Calif., refines, packages, and markets all of Hawaii's sugar output.
But under a new agreement that runs through 2008, Gay & Robinson can clean up a portion of its raw sugar to sell as a finished natural sugar. The company already has expanded its processing plant at the Olokele Sugar Mill to house refinery equipment that will produce a food grade quality sugar by the middle of next year, Kennett said.
The company is keeping the product -- which could be either a refined white, or darker more molasses-based sugar -- as well as the name under wraps, but will soon launch a marketing campaign, Kennett said.
"We are going to the market to see what the market would like," Kennett said. "We are still looking at what to put on the label. It could be Kauai crystals or something like that, but it will clearly state it's from Kauai. We need to have that name recognition."
If the company produces a refined white sugar, it will compete head-on with C&H Sugar, the brand of choice in Hawaii. However, if the company elects to market a darker sugar, it could compete with Maui brand sugar products. Regardless, there's a large market for Hawaii-based products, Kennett said.
"There are only two sugar plantations left in Hawaii and most of Maui's product is being sold on the mainland," Kennett said. "Hawaii products have value on the mainland, even more as the volume dwindles. People like to buy a sugar product from Hawaii."
While Kauai's economy is not entirely dependent on sugar, the survival of the industry is important to the county's psyche, especially after the very emotional closing of the Amfac and McBride plantations, said Beth Tokioka, economic development director for Kauai.
"For us, some of it is of a symbolic nature, the fact that sugar continues to flourish and employ hundreds of people is very important because it's such a symbolic part of our agricultural tradition," Tokioka said. "When the other sugar plantations closed down, Gay & Robinson just wouldn't say die and it's so wonderful to see that their future is extremely bright."
Kauai is looking at ways to bolster the retail performance of island agricultural products, Tokioka said. When Gay & Robinson releases its new sugar product, it will likely find success in tourist and Internet markets, she said.
"A lot of Hawaii's appeal as a tourist entity is in its agriculture," she said. "We've always tried to cross-market Kauai products. It would be wonderful to be able to offer a Kauai sugar product that could be served in our local restaurants or on the cruise ships or sold to tourists."
