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TheBuzz Erika Engle |
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Maui Raspberry Wine Jelly, made by students of the Maui Culinary Academy, is shown above. The ten-ounce jars sell for a suggested retail price of $9, with proceeds going back to the culinary program.
Maui jelly project
surely sweeter than
a term paperSTUDENTS of the Maui Culinary Academy at Maui Community College have converted trash into treasure; fertilizer into food product; and, gulp, compost into cuisine.
The school's students have developed Maui Raspberry Wine Jelly, a product that associate professor Chris Speere claims can be found nowhere else on earth.
Ten-ounce jars with artful labels sell for a suggested retail price of $9 at several locations around Maui, including the source of its inspiration.
A phone call from Tedeschi Winery President Paula Hegele to the MCC culinary arts department, offering some of Tedeschi's processing remnants, started what could become a thriving business.
Could the school use raspberry lees? she asked. The lees are what's left after the raspberries are pressed for winemaking, Speere said. "They would otherwise throw it away."
The question elicited a light-bulb-over-the-head (bling!) positive response.
Now the winery is the largest purchaser of the upscale wine jelly, which can be used in a marinade, eaten with cheeses or in a decidedly high-end peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. At least, that's what the marketing materials say.
"It's been exciting and we've had a lot of people supporting us down the entire way," Speere said.
The Maui Agricultural Foundation provided startup funding for product development, jar sourcing, labeling and purchase of the jelly's other ingredients, "but actually it's the lees that make the product unique."
"It's like a very intense raspberry puree and it comes to us in a very useful form," Speere said. The hard seeds and other bits of the lees are filtered out in the jelly processing, for consistency's sake.
The jelly is prepared in MCC's new, state-of-the-art $17 million facility. "We have this gorgeous learning environment," which is now used not just to teach skillet deglazing or radish-rose carving, but for students' research and development of a new product.
"I think we're probably the most progressive culinary program in the state," Speere said. The R&D training provided those students "another option of a career that's related to culinary arts, and that's been, I guess, the most exciting factor."
MCC has a student-staffed gourmet dining room that seats 134 and the private room that seats 24. It also runs other food service operations, such as a patisserie and sushi bar. The dining rooms serve four-course lunches on Wednesdays and Fridays by reservation and are open to the public. That is pretty much to be expected from a culinary arts program.
Going beyond that with the jelly, "Our students have seen the process of taking a raw product and doing recipe testing, going through the processing of the product, searching out labels, following safety issues. Now we're at the marketing, looking at the economic side, looking at profit-and-loss," said Speere.
Proceeds are poured back into the culinary arts program.
Maui graphics firm Sae Design created the label and Grapevine Productions is handling public relations, but the student-origin of the product itself seems to beg for the academic integration of students in other fields of study on campus.
"You're right on the money there," Speere said.
"Our next big step is to create a Web site for this product. We are hoping to work with students on campus to help us get the Web site up, and begin to do e-commerce activities with the jelly."
Those students are likely to come from the digital media program, according to Clyde Sakamoto, MCC chancellor.
"That could certainly contribute to the partnership we've developed with Sae Design ... The company has been very generous and interested in helping the program grow," he said.
"Our faculty members are providing some leadership in understanding the field, the complexities of the environment and these business opportunities themselves. This is new for us. We clearly see opportunities that our community and industry ought to be taking advantage of. We are learning ourselves how to succeed in these new ventures," said Sakamoto.
Possible partnerships in various stages, from planting to seedling to budding, include some well-known Maui entities.
"We're working with Ulupalakua Ranch, Tedeschi Vineyards, Kula farmers, California-Hawaii Sugar, Maui Land and Pineapple Co. and with the Maui Cattle Co., all of whom are partners with the college in seeing how we can interpret a product for the marketplace," said Sakamoto.
The academy is also working with Maui Lavender Farms to develop a shortbread cookie and a white chocolate lavender sauce, Speere said.
The food service industry provides great opportunities for employment, Sakamoto said. While it is a traditional field of employment, Sakamoto observed "that the whole television presence of food has had a tremendous influence on our young people's interest in a profession that's being recognized by the public, generally as being one that offers creativity, exceptional opportunity and one that's going to be around for awhile."
The next logical curriculum step would involve the business side of running a restaurant or food-related business, he said. "It's just a very logical progression of what an institution needs to do."
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at: eengle@starbulletin.com
