Whole Foods Market, the world’s leading retailer of natural and organic foods, which has 195 stores in North America and the United Kingdom, has announced that it is opening stores in Hawai‘i. And its website, describing the company’s corporate values, seems to be in line with what we want for Hawai‘i. But I worry that the company may not really understand what it means to be located on islands in the middle of the ocean.

I think that the company’s benefit to life in Hawai‘i will be determined by whether or not it is a positive force in helping Hawaii become a food-sustainable society. In other words, will it support local farmers in a way that increases locally produced food?

We are the most isolated place in the world. If shipping is interrupted for a long time we are doomed. Will Whole Foods help Hawai‘i to become more food secure?

I can point to two supermarkets who have made a major difference in supporting local food producers. Although they also help many other local producers, I can use our own experiences to demonstrate what they do.

Several years ago, Jenai Walls, President of Foodland Supermarkets, and Abel Porter, its Chief Operating Officer, visited our farm. They let us know that it was their personal intent to support local farmers and to support us as we developed our farm business. Soon after, they invited June and me to lunch on O‘ahu to reinforce that commitment.

Subsequently, Jenai wrote a very strong letter in support of our application for a Rural Economic Transition Assistance Hawaii grant. This grant assists businesses in transitioning from a sugar-based economy to a diversified one. That grant was very important in the development of our hydroponic farm operations and I’m sure Jenai’s letter of support was instrumental in our obtaining it.

Recently Foodland Supermarket agreed to help us by marketing our excess bananas during the seasonal high point. This was very significant because if we were had not been able to sell our bananas during that period, we would have been forced to take them out of production, which would have caused a shortage during the next winter period. Because Foodland supported us during such a critical period, we will have adequate volume of bananas next winter.

Foodland’s support allows us to continue to grow our farm business. This is much more than just talk, and demonstrates real support for local agriculture.

Abel Porter, the company’s COO, visited us again last month. He wanted to see how our hydroponic operation was progressing and also to continue to demonstrate Foodland’s commitment to supporting locally grown produce. We showed him some new products in development. He thought some had potential and we will be working with Foodland to bring those products to market.

KTA Superstores is another local market that makes an extra effort to support local suppliers. Its company brand is called Mountain Apple. KTA makes a special effort to source local products. They are always game to try something new.

We have been fortunate over the years because KTA works very closely with us in product development. They advise us on what kind of packaging might work and then give us real time feedback. This gives us a great opportunity to see what works and what does not. KTA has helped us, in a real way, since we first produced bananas more than 30 years ago.

Recently we took a mainland trip with Derek Kurisu, KTA’s legendary Vice President of Operations. He showed us how some of the Napa Valley wine operators market their products. He took us to see how value-added salad dressing was manufactured—the kind one finds in the Williams Sonoma catalog. And we saw how value-added fresh cut fruit is packaged and processed. This was a very valuable, educational experience.

From our perspective, Foodland Supermarkets and KTA Superstores do a lot to help Hawai‘i become self-sufficient in terms of food. It’s a complex issue, but both of these companies do more than most to try to make this work.

We’ll see what happens when Whole Foods enters our Hawai‘i market. I am hopeful it will be a positive for our local farmers and other food producers. I’ll revisit this subject here on the blog after they’ve been in Hawai‘i awhile and we can see how things are unfolding.