With its remote location, East Maui relies on a self-sufficient agricultural lifestyle, with abundant production of vegetable crops and fruit orchards, as well as traditional taro farming, and many tropical flower farms. The Hawaiʻi Farmers Union United (HFUU) Hāna Chapter, which supports East Maui farmers, has been leading an effort to develop a food hub for the area to address the region's unique challenges. The food hub facility proposes commercial cooking spaces, food processing (packaging and labeling), value added processing, training, certifications, education, and retail. In addition to supporting farmers, the facility will also support fishing, hunting, and ranching needs.

The purpose of the proposed facility is to serve as:

• A shared-use certified commercial kitchen that can be rented by farmers, ranchers and processors to produce value-added products (VAP), increasing the shelf life, marketability and profitability of food grown/raised in the region;

• An agricultural aggregation and processing facility where growers can bring their crops to be cleaned, graded and packed to be transported to markets;

• A space to support educational programming around food processing and culinary arts, especially to support new and aspiring farmers, ranchers and processors in DOH requirements, safe food handling, labeling, marketing and business management.

The project team is supporting the HFUU to advance a long-standing initiative in developing a food hub for East Maui. UHCDC will assist by gathering and compiling relevant project information, developing a site selection decision-making matrix, engaging stakeholders, and crafting a proof of concept program and site design. The proof-of-concept design is intended to inform future conversations and funding requests.

Client: Hawaiʻi Farmers Union United
Principal Investigator: Cathi Ho Schar & Kimi Makaiau
Project Staff: Jonathan (Malu) Stanich & Logan Shiroma