Truth In Labeling Bill
Q&A
July 2002

Q. Why is "Truth in Labeling" so important to the Hawaii coffee industry?
A. Most of the coffees roasted and sold in Hawaii that carry Hawaii identifiers are a ten percent blend - using only 10% Hawaiian coffee and 90% imported foreign coffee. The general public does not realize this. A perception has been created that the coffee is indeed Hawaiian coffee - when 9 of every 10 beans are not. The labeling requirement will allow roasters to distinguish a Premium Blend coffee - defined as one that may contain 30% or 50% Hawaiian coffee - from one containing only 10%. 

Q: What are the benefits to the Hawaii Coffee industry?
A: The Hawaii Coffee Association feels that this new labeling requirement has the potential to generate a new wave of premium coffee products in Hawaii, containing a much higher percentage of Hawaiian coffees, than exist today. 

Q. What are the benefits to the consumer?
A. The clear benefits to the consumer are, first, improved awareness of what they are buying by, second, providing them with the ability to differentiate blends from 100% coffees. The labeling requirements in the Truth In Labeling Bill will allow the consumer to clearly distinguish between a blend that uses both Hawaiian coffee and foreign coffee from a 100% Hawaiian coffee. HCA believes that the trend will be to increase the percentages of Hawaiian coffees used in the blends ultimately producing a higher quality product for the consumer.

Q. Why was this new law needed and what was HCA's role?
A. The Hawaii Coffee Association (HCA), in response to complaints registered by a group of Japanese coffee industry executives regarding blends of Hawaiian coffees, formed a committee to develop a strategy to address the current blend labeling law. 
The committee was made up of farmers, processors, roasters, and retailers from around the state. Assisted by the Department of Agriculture and the University of Hawaii, the committee met over a period of several months finally reaching a consensus on the direction of a new to be introduced to the Hawaii Legislature. 

Once the language of the bill was drafted, the committee spent another year presenting it to industry groups around the State. Presentations were made at the HCA 2001 Convention and several meetings were held with industry groups; The Kona Coffee Council, Kona Farmer Alliance, Hawaii Farm Bureau, Kona Pacific Farmers Cooperative. Several changes were made to the language of the bill to address concerns raised by these organizations.

Q: Who supported or opposed it?
A: The bill was introduced in the 2002 Hawaii Legislative session as part of the Farm Bureau's Legislative Package. Farm Bureau lobbyists assisted the HCA in tracking the bill through the legislative process. No industry opposition to the bill was heard during eight legislative committee hearings and the bill (SB2169) was sent to the Governor for signing on April 19, 2002.

Q. Why not just change the law to require a higher percentage of Hawaiian coffee be used in all blends?
A. Frankly, this is where HCS started, but we found no consensus within our membership as to what that minimum should be --- for example, 10%, 33% or 50%. 
We then looked for common ground where there was both consensus and a benefit to the public and we found it in Truth In Labeling - clearly telling the consumer what they are buying. Truth In Labeling is a hard concept to argue with.

Q. Does the new law require any minimum quantity of Hawaiian coffee in blends of Hawaiian Coffee?
A. Yes, but only in the case where the blend is using Kona Coffee. The 10% minimum for Kona requirement in the existing law has not been changed. There is no minimum requirement for other Hawaiian coffees.

Q. How will the new law affect people currently producing coffee products in Hawaii?
A. If you are producing a coffee label now, it is likely that you will have to change the appearance of your product labels. 

· For benders using foreign coffees to blend with coffees grown in Hawaii, the actual percentage of the Hawaii coffee used in such a blend will have to be placed in front of and in the same font size as the Hawaiian origin used on the label. For example, current products known as "Kona Blend" will have to be labels as "__% Kona Blend". The current requirement to place the statement "Contains not less than 10% Kona Coffee" has been eliminated in the new law.
· For producers of 100% Hawaiian products, the term "100%" will have be place in front of and in the same font size as the Hawaiian origin used on the label.

Q. Will coffee producers have to throw away existing supplies of labels once this law comes into effect?
A. No. The new law provides a one-year grace period for producers to use up existing supplies of labels.

Q. How should people find details about the new law?
A. The Hawaii Coffee Association will post the new law on their website. The HCA web site can be found at www.hawaiicoffeeassoc.org. Anyone designing a new coffee label should contact the Department of Agriculture - Quality Assurance Branch, Diane Yamamoto (808) 
973-9563.


Q. Why are you referring to Hawaiian Coffee rather than Kona Coffee?
A. The HCA represents all coffees grown in Hawaii and not just Kona so we tend to use Hawaiian coffees when we speak. When we say Hawaiian Coffees we mean coffees from any of the certified origins in Hawaii: Kona, Kauai, Molokai, Oahu and Maui, and a certified origin called Hawaii, which would contain 100% Hawaii coffee - either a single island or combination several islands.

Q. What is the HCA? 
A. The Hawaii Coffee Association represents every segment of the Hawaii coffee industry. Our leadership and membership includes growers, roasters, distributors and retailers, coffee researchers and representatives of other coffee associations. The mission of the Hawaii Coffee Association is to promote the consumption of all the coffees grown in the State of Hawaii in a way that educates and informs the seller and consumer. 

Our website is: www.hawaiicoffeeassoc.org 

The HCA is recognized by the State of Hawaii Department of Agriculture as the industry's umbrella organization. Therefore we take the lead role in representing organizations like the Kona Coffee Council, The Kona Farmers Alliance and the Hawaii Coffee Growers Association. We are involved in coffee research with both the Hawaii Agricultural Research Center and the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. But, over the past two years, our focus has been on a combination of marketing and education and we found that Truth In Labeling was an effective tool to address both of these issues. 

RELATED ISSUES

Q. Why is Kona Coffee so expensive?
A. Over the past 150 years, the coffee industry in Kona has evolved into a conglomerate of relatively small farms (average size - 3 to 5 acres). Production on these farms is primarily hand labor. Consequently, the cost of production is very high relative to other coffee producing areas. However, the region in Kona known as the "coffee belt" (1,000 to 2,500 feet in elevation) provides perfect coffee growing conditions for coffee, and this area has, for over 150 years, produced some of the world's finest coffee. With a limited amount of acreage available for coffee production, and a market perception developed over many years, people continue to be willing to pay a higher price to get Kona coffee.

Q. How do the coffees from the different islands compare to Kona and to each other?
A. We, who live in Hawaii, have appreciated the different subtleties and flavors of our
Island's coffees. We have prepared a new Hawaii Coffee Association brochure which includes good descriptions of each island's coffee qualities. We'd also refer you to what the acknowledged experts in the field have to say about our coffees. 


Q. Why are coffee companies going out of business on Maui and Oahu?
A. Each situation is different in many respects. On Maui, the parent company filed for
bankruptcy on the coffee operation and several other holdings in Hawaii. On 
Oahu, the parent company sold their coffee operation to a company that turned out to be under-capitalized and that had no ready market for its coffee. 

Both situations were related to the falling market conditions occurring after 9/11. A not so directly related force was also that the world coffee market was and continues to be very economically depressed. This depression did wash over the specialty coffee market. We are hopeful and optimistic that both will resume operations soon. 

Back to the Truth in Labeling Bill

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Steve Collector (808) 323-3131

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