KAPA‘A — By sea or by air, Esaki’s handles the majority of all wholesale produce imported to Kaua‘i and serves as a marketer for Kaua‘i farmers.
About 90 percent of all the food consumed on Kaua‘i is imported, said Earl Kashiwagi, owner and general manager, and Esaki’s wholesales approximately 60 percent of the produce imported to the Garden Isle. At most, 30 percent of imported produce comes from neighboring Hawaiian islands.
Esaki’s Produce supplies fruits and vegetable to all of Kaua‘i’s supermarkets, including Costco, as well as most of the resorts, hotels and restaurants of all sizes, even the mom-and-pops.
Esaki’s only handles produce. Koa Trading in Lihu‘e handles all other types of foods. “We have a handshake partnership with them,” Kashiwagi said. “They don’t carry produce, and we don’t carry anything else.”
However, Esaki’s and Koa Trading sometimes will work together on shipping and delivery, when necessary, such as when cargo is waiting on the docks at Matson’s pier or needs to be delivered in a hurry to a commercial customer.
The familiar sight of Esaki’s 16 delivery trucks can be seen in every town on the island. The smaller trucks in the fleet trucks often are dispatched to the hotels.
Less frequently noticed are the daily deliveries to the warehouse of refrigerated shipping containers as well as pallets on flatbed trucks. Some of the crates on flatbeds can be seven- to eight-feet tall, Kashiwagi said.
Customers
“We also offer our marketing services to any farmer here interested in conventional or organic farming,” he said.
In fact, Esaki’s will do business with just about anyone. They even have a small retail display stand in the warehouse for chefs and others that require only small amounts of things, like a head of top-grade bok choi for a special preparation.
The public pays full retail prices at the warehouse.
“We can only give wholesale discounts to our commercial customers,” he said. “Otherwise our friends in the supermarkets would get upset, and we respect them.”
When shipments come into the warehouse, they are inspected by a State agricultural officer and then graded for quality by the warehouse staff. Second- and third-grade produce, such as uncrated lettuce, may be offered at lower prices, he said, “and you can’t beat the freshness.”
Produce
Esaki’s mainly carries conventionally grown produce along with an expanding selection of organic fruits and vegetables.
“We don’t see it as a matter of organic or poison, but we do choose only to carry produce grown ethically for everybody with the least amount of pesticides and herbicides,” he said, adding that there is nothing new or exotic about organic farming. “That’s how food was grown for thousands of years until recently.”
The only issue he has with organic produce is that “it has a short shelf life. Because it is not treated with preservatives, it does not stay fresh as long as conventional produce.”
Esaki’s follows a traditional Asian cultural values that connect the quality of food with the length of life, he said.
“That’s why we don’t like (genetically modified organisms), and we stay away from carrying any GMO products. We don’t carry irradiated produce either. Protecting customers through compliance with food safety rules is very important to us. The problem is that we have not yet found an equilibrium between the poor grower and the final consumer.”
If the produce has been processed in any way, then food safety inspections add costs. On the other hand, for the produce to be certified as organic, “the farmer has to jump through a lot of hoops, and that presents a real challenge to them,” Kashiwagi said.
“Each island is strongest in certain crops, just like certain parts of California specialize in asparagus, broccoli or lettuce.”
An example would be the sweet onions grown only in the Kula region on Maui.
“The altitude, soil and drainage are unique there, with warm days and cool nights, so no other Maui onion is the same,” he said. “That’s why there is a $5 to $10 difference per carton for Kula onions versus other Maui onions.”
Grown only here on Kaua‘i is the Sunrise variety of papaya, a crossbreed between the red watermelon papaya and the yellow Solo papaya.
“We have to be very selective when it comes to papayas,” Kashiwagi said, “The Solo papaya industry almost collapsed because of the ringspot virus, and that how the GMO Rainbow papaya came about, but we don’t carry them because they are GMOs.”
On the other hand, they do import Diamondhead papayas from Hilo.
“The Diamondhead is a true Solo papaya,” he said, “and that’s why it’s always a higher price.”
Except for onions and papayas, he continued, “we’re hardly exporting anything to the mainland anymore except for ginger. The avocados grown here cannot be exported because of food regulations. We also export Dole and Maui Pine pineapples, but they only call us to export when there are shortages or special need.”
Yet Kashiwagi said he would love to handle more locally grown produce.
“We have been around for awhile, and because we started as farmers, we have relationships with most of the farmers on Kaua‘i. We are ohana, family.”
History
The company began on Kaua‘i in 1923 as a farming operation by two Esaki brothers in Moloa‘a. Take Tsugi (Jou) Esaki and Tetsuo Esaki moved to the Anahola valley in 1948 and then relocated to Aliomanu in 1955, where they maintained a truck farming operation until 1989.
“They raised more than 35 crops,” Kashiwagi said, “and they sold their harvest across Kaua‘i to hotels, restaurants and grocery stores. Then they started shipping to the other islands.”
A major change came in 1976 with the advent of refrigerated ocean-shipping containers. The brothers decided to supplement their own crops from overseas, such as bringing in honeydew melons and cantaloupe.
Kashiwagi joined Esaki’s in 1970. He was born in Honolulu and raised as a foster son of Henry J. Kaiser, who put him through high school and part of college. Kashiwagi said his mother was the sister of the two original Esaki brothers. When his cousins chose to pursue other fields of interest, Kashiwagi became the general manager. Since 1976, he has since seen the company evolve with the produce marketplace.
“We used to supply all the produce for 50 percent of the cruise ships that docked in Kaua‘i,” he said. Because of the economy, now there are fewer cruise ships, and they are fully stocked at their ports of origin, especially Los Angeles and San Francisco. Now, we only deliver a few items to cruise ships when they call 24 hours in advance, such as when they run out of pineapple or something.”
The next step in the produce market might be the production of more locally grown produce, he said, but it’s unlikely that Kaua‘i will become agriculturally self-sufficient.
“There’s not much farmable land here,” he said. “The key to farmable land is water. Farmers have to have a good water source to stay in business, and most of the fresh water piped out of the rivers here is taken by people other than farmers. Even on the west side, the water rights to the Hanapepe River is owned by someone.”
Under 1973 and 1985 circuit court decisions in a McBryde Sugar case, the State of Hawai‘i cannot easily interfere with property owners’ water rights.
“There’s a century-long fight over the Hanapepe between the state and the plantations,” Kashiwagi said, “and the farmers are caught in the middle. Beyond the quest for water, not too many people really want to go into farming on a day-to-day basis. If it wasn’t for the immigrant populations who came to work on the plantations, agriculture might not have gotten started here.”
Now, Kaua‘i has mostly moved away from agriculture, he said.
“Tourism is the primary industry providing revenue here, but I wish more young people were being introduced to farming, such as through the schools. Even Bill Gates likes farming now … You have to realize that farmers usually are born to it through many generations. There’s a lifestyle, a social life for those raised around the farm atmosphere. Farming grows on you,” Kashiwagi said.
“Those not born to farming are seldom drawn to the work. People in condos may look at a video about farming and say they want to do it or they think farming is all about real estate, but that’s not the same thing as having the integrity and devotion to stick with it. Farming is enjoyable but it’s hard work.”
Esaki’s Produce is located at 4780 Kahau St. in Kapa‘a. For additional information, call 822-7722.
