My testimony – Hawaii Island County Concil re Blends

My testimony – Hawaii Island County Concil re Blends was Originally Posted on December 28, 2006 by lavarock

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

I speak in support of legislation that increases the percentage of Kona Coffee in a bag marked “Kona Coffee Blend” and tells of its real origin. By allowing a low concentration of real Kona in the bag, the public is misled and the product is cheapened in the public’s eyes. A 10% blend is NOT Kona Coffee, the same as 1 gallon of gasoline in 9 gallons of water should not be sold as a gasoline blend, its water!

I have approached store customers who have a bag of blend in their hand. Most think they are buying a product that contains all Kona coffee, or a blend of coffee from various Kona farms. Few if any understand that they are actually buying a foreign (NON-US) coffee with a hint of Kona in the bag. When told that, they inevitably place the bag back on the shelf and buy a 100% Kona product. We don’t consider 10% a passing grade in school, yet we allow passing off 10% as Kona Coffee.

Visitors buying coffee from large stores are rarely buying pure Kona Coffee from farmers because stores such Longs, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Hilo Hatties, Safeway, ABC, Whalers Store, Kamagaki Market and ChoiceMart all require UPC Barcodes. First year startup costs for those codes is $750 and then $150 a year thereafter. Thus the farmer is priced out of selling in major retail stores and the public buys what is on the shelves; mostly blends.

One blender keeps telling us he sells more Kona than anyone else. Scanning the shelves at K-Mart recently, I counted 120 bags of his blend and not one bag of his 100% Kona there. How is the public to know the difference when they are inundated with blends?

So small farmers end up selling their coffee on Internet sites, at farmers Markets or out of the back of their pickup trucks. A company can have KONA in their name and yet no Kona in the bag. Outside of Hawaii people can advertise they have 100% Kona in the bag, yet none needs to be there, because these labeling laws, as useful as they are, are Hawaii specific and not Federally regulated.

I am not against blends and some price conscious consumers love them. I am against large companies trying to fool the public by taking coffee from 3rd world countries, sprinkling a bit of Kona in the bag and passing it off with KONA prominently on the label. If the other 90% is so good, why not tell the public that the majority of filler in the bag comes from such “exotic locations” such as India, Vietnam, Central and South America and Asia? Because Kona conjures up the idea of Paradise!

Remember that FARMERS don’t blend, processors do. Farmers take pride in their unique product. It is this coffee “INDUSTRY” who makes and sells blends and continues to use our name to push their potion. They take a few cents worth of foreign coffee, add the minimum amount of Kona required by state law, and sell the product for 40% the cost of 100% Kona. They say that the contents of their blend are “secret” because they don’t want to admit where the majority of the coffee really comes from.

Please fight for the farmers, and support this bill. Thank You!