Hawaii-grown
agricultural products
will hit Travel Channel

Hawaii Regional Cuisine chef and restaurateur Alan Wong also will be part of the show.

Its host is Michael Lomonaco, once the executive chef at Windows on the World restaurant, which was in the World Trade Center before the towers were destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"They had never done a feature on chocolate coming from the tree to the bar -- and we're the only entity of its kind (in the United States) that grows and processes (chocolate)," said Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory owner Robert Cooper Jr.

The show's producers were sent to Cooper and his Kona-based chocolate operation by Richard Spiegel, owner of Volcano Island Honey Co., Cooper said. Spiegel had been featured in a 2000 "epicurious" episode and the show's producers contacted him for referrals.

"He recommended Hawaiian Vanilla, Kona coffee, exotic fruits and chocolate," Cooper said.

Other Kona features that will be included on the show are Holualoa Coffee Co.'s Kona Lea Plantation and a coffee tasting taped at Hilton Waikoloa Village. On the Hilo side of the Big Island, the "epicurious" crew visited the Hawaiian Vanilla Co.

The day of the shoot was "gorgeous and pristine" and Lomonaco "wanted to buy land next to me," laughed Jim Reddekopp, president of Hawaiian Vanilla. "They came to us because we do a culinary tour each week for Norwegian Cruise Line."

Highlights of the tour include Holualoa Coffee and the Original Hawaiian Chocolate Factory. Also, visitors "come to our place and have a five-course gourmet lunch," Reddekopp said.

Incidentally, the once-a-week luncheon for 35 guests will be expanded with part of a $296,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant that will fund the construction of a commercial kitchen.

The overall expansion will see Hawaiian Vanilla grow from 30,000 square feet to 180,000 square feet and will create jobs in the tiny Hamakua coast town of Paauilo.

The Travel Channel reaches more than 74 million homes, which is a whole lot of potential visitors and e-commerce customers for the relatively small local operations.

Graced with national exposure in the past, Cooper and Reddekopp know they'll have to be ready with their products when the show premieres, probably in April, Cooper was told.

"We've been on the (Food Network), Discovery (Channel), 'Average Joe 2 Hawaii' ... We've gotten some good publicity," Cooper said.

Reddekopp has experienced similar response to national exposure, saying there is no way they could afford to buy the amount of advertising that would be required for a similar response.

"It's a total blessing," he said.