Del Monte to close Hawaii operations ahead of schedule

From Yahoo, the Hon­olulu Star-Bulletin, and the Hon­olulu Adver­tiser: Del Monte announced yes­ter­day that the com­pany will shut down its Hawaii oper­a­tions within the next 60 days, the min­i­mum amount of time allowed by Fed­eral law for a lay­off announce­ment. The lay­off affects 551 Del Monte employees.I’ve heard of giv­ing pineap­ples as a Christ­mas present, but this seems cruel. Del Monte’s been a part of the Hawai­ian econ­omy for a cen­tury, and this announce­ment is another nail in the cof­fin for Hawai­ian agri­cul­ture, as more farm­land is con­verted to res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial use.

It’s much less expen­sive for Del Monte to grow pineap­ples in Costa Rica, the Philip­pines and Thai­land than Hawaii, mostly because of labor costs. Appar­ently Hawaii pineap­ple no longer com­mands a pre­mium price from consumers.

The com­pany had announced in Feb­ru­ary that it would shut down oper­a­tions in 2008. The new date means that the cur­rent crop of pineap­ple, grown on a 5100 acre plot in Kunia, may be aban­doned. Pineap­ple takes three years to cul­ti­vate and har­vest. Maui Pineap­ple has asked to sal­vage the aban­doned crop, but Dole may become the only com­pany grow­ing pineap­ple on Oahu.

Tagged as: culture, economy, Federal, Hawaii, Hawaiian, Honolulu, law, Maui, Oahu