KEKAHA – Amfac Sugar Kauai has announced plans to end milling operations at the Kekaha Sugar mill and truck cane to the Lihue Plantation mill for final processing. The move means 35 factory and harvesting personnel at Kekaha will be
KEKAHA – Amfac Sugar Kauai has announced plans to end milling operations at the Kekaha Sugar mill and truck cane to the Lihue Plantation mill for final processing.
The move means 35 factory and harvesting personnel at Kekaha will be displaced, said Amfac president Gary Grottke.
All of the displaced workers are being offered the opportunity to select from 79 currently vacant positions on the island, as well as 35 new jobs hauling the cane to Lihu’e and working with the new, one-year mechanical harvesting operation.
The net result of the changes is that 14 jobs will be added to the company, for a total of 481 employees.
“Given long-term costs of operating in this business, these are changes that will help to keep Amfac Sugar Kauai operating profitably in the future,” Grottke said.
The company is working closely with the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations and Kaua’i Community College to retrain employees interested in the new jobs, or to train new employees.
Displaced employees who decide not to retrain will be offered early retirement and severance pay in accordance with the company’s labor contract with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).
Under the new plan, sugar harvested from Amfac Sugar Kauai’s western operations will be trucked to the eastern operations’ (Lihue Plantation) mill for final
processing after being received, cleaned and prepared by the factory chopper at Kekaha.
All milling, sugar boiling, steam and power generation will cease at the Kekaha factory, Grottke said.
The design and installation of a two-year crop cane chopper is expected to reduce operational costs considerably, Grottke said.
The recent plunge in sugar prices will affect revenue this year and beyond, he said. Unlike Gay & Robinson sugar, Amfac’s final harvesting numbers won’t be known for another two weeks or so, as processing of this year’s crop continues.
Amfac Sugar has about 1,000 acres in crops other than sugar, including sweet corn, seed corn, alfalfa, mango, and papaya. The non-sugar crops have generally been planted on lands which haven’t been in sugar for some time, or those lands where sugar didn’t grow particularly well.
Most of the non-sugar crops are grown near Kekaha, but also can be seen along Kaumuali’i Highway near the Nawiliwili Road intersection.
Funds to explore new crops were provided to the company through the RETA-H (Rural Economic Transition Administration-Hawai’i), a federal program using federal U.S. Department of Defense funds.
