When the sugar ship Moku Pahu left Nawiliwili Wednesday afternoon, it took with it the last of Amfac Sugar Kaua’i’s final harvest. It also carried in its holds a substantial weight of sugar from Gay & Robinson, the island’s surviving
When the sugar ship Moku Pahu left Nawiliwili Wednesday afternoon, it took with
it the last of Amfac Sugar Kaua’i’s final harvest.
It also carried in its
holds a substantial weight of sugar from Gay & Robinson, the island’s
surviving plantation.
The end of Amfac Sugar Kaua’i, which came in
mid-November, doesn’t mean, the end of the Moku Pahu’s journeys between
Nawiliwili and the California and Hawaiian Sugar Co. (C&H) refinery in
Crockett, Calif.
As long as sugar is grown on Kaua’i, the Moku Pahu will
continue to call at Nawiliwili, said Jeff Hull of Matson Navigation, which
operates the Moku Pahu for Hawai’i Sugar & Transportation Co. Hawai’i Sugar
is made up of the two surviving plantations — G&R on Kaua’i and Hawaiian
Commercial & Sugar on Maui.
The Moku Pahu is scheduled to make two
Nawiliwili stops in 2001 to carry G&R sugar to the C&H refinery, Hull
said from his office in San Francisco.
G&R has over a year remaining
in its refining and marketing contract with C&H. After that agreement
expires, it is anticipated that G&R will move to refine and market its own
sugar, much like Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar — the Maui plantation which
is the state’s largest — does with its Maui Brand raw sugar products.
With
the exodus of Amfac Sugar Kaua’i, the cost of maintaining and operating the
bulk sugar terminal above Nawiliwili Harbor falls solely on G&R. The
terminal is where sugar is stored until enough is accumulated to warrant a call
from the Moku Pahu.
For G&R to remain a viable sugar plantation, Alan
Kennett, president and general manager, has stated repeatedly it needs to
increase its acreage. The company, along with a coalition of West Side farmers,
has been granted permission to move onto former Kekaha Sugar land leased from
the state.
C&H was founded in 1906 and operated from 1921 to 1993 as an
agricultural cooperative marketing association owned by the member sugar
companies in Hawai’i. In 1993, the member companies sold their interests in
C&H to Alexander & Baldwin Inc. in Honolulu, and the refining company’s
status changed from a cooperative to a corporation.
C&H is one of the
leading sugar brands in the company’s markets. C&H’s primary market is west
of the Mississippi River, although some sugar is sold on the eastern seaboard.
More than 100 types, grades, and package sizes are sold within the two major
groupings of grocery and industrial products.
The Crockett facility
refines, packages and markets all of the output from Hawaii’s two remaining
sugar factories, at Kaumakani on Kaua’i and Pu’unene on Maui.
Staff
Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext.
224).
Staff Photo by Dennis Fujimoto
THE MOKU PAHU sugar ship
prepares to get underway from Nawiliwili Harbor after loading the final 15,000
tons of sugar processed at Amfac Sugar Kaua’i’s former Lihu’e Plantation mill.
It also carries tons of Gay & Robinson sugar to the California and Hawaiian
Sugar Company refinery in Crockett, Calif.
