Kauai’s three pineapple companies closed long ago

Kauai Pineapple Co., Hawaiian Canneries, and Hawaiian Fruit Packers were Kauai’s pineapple companies.

Kauai Pineapple Co. of Lawai, known locally as Kauai Pine, was established in 1906 with the financial backing of McBryde Sugar Co.

Fifty-six years later, in 1962, with Kauai Pine losing money due to poor land, declining income and rising costs, Alexander &Baldwin, Kauai Pine’s parent company, announced that Kauai Pine would soon be closed.

Residents of Lawai, Kalaheo and outlying areas were alarmed, since Kauai Pine had been their principal source of income.

Closing meant that 181 regular, 105 intermittent and 814 seasonal employees would lose their jobs.

Then in 1964, when Kauai Pine’s final crop was packed, its brand name pineapple products “King of Hawaii” and “Vita Gold” became a part of history.

Hawaiian Canneries Co. cultivated pineapple on 3,400 acres ranging from Hanamaulu to Hanalei, and canned its pineapple at its Kapaa cannery, now the site of Pono Kai Resort.

It closed in 1962 after being in business for nearly 50 years due to increased taxes, labor costs and foreign competition.

With its closing, about 250 regular employees and 1,500 seasonal employees became unemployed, and its employees and their dependents residing at its Moloaa Camp relocated.

Now privately owned, Moloaa Camp’s property became a cattle ranch in 1966, and Meadow Gold operated a dairy there from 1989 until 2000.

Hawaiian Fruit Packers, with its cannery in Kapahi, grew pineapple on 2,175 acres in Wailua, Kapaa, Kealia, Anahola and Moloaa.

When it closed in 1973 after 41 years of operation, 70 full-time and about 90 part-time workers were let go, and a dozen farmers growing pineapple on a contract basis lost their market.

A postscript to this story are the “Pineapple Commandos,” the GIs stationed on Kauai during World War II who volunteered to harvest pineapples for Hawaiian Canneries in July 1943.

And, on a personal note: My wife Ginger’s mother, Juliana Beralas, and Ginger’s aunts, Maria and Natividad, worked at the Kapaa cannery, and Ginger herself was employed at the Kapahi cannery during the summer of 1966 while attending Kauai High School.
Source: The Garden Island