Mahiʻai Made

Meet Tom Menezes, a local farmer, chocolatier and cafe owner. He has been farming for over 45 years and has been on the board of directors and a member of the Hawaiʻi ‘Ulu Cooperative for four years.

Tom’s background is in plant pathology research, but his love for surfing and the outdoors pulled him away from the lab. After discovering that farming is his real passion, Tom switched gears to working with the land and started a landscaping business in Oahu with a good friend. He later moved to Maui in the late 1970s, where he worked on a pineapple plantation. To Tom’s dismay, all the plantation’s pineapples were canned and exported to the mainland. Hawaiʻi’s food self-sufficiency is still a significant issue 50 years later.

Tom eventually moved back to Oahu, where he started a farm and began growing and selling his particular variety of ‘Hawaiian Crown Sweet Gold’ pineapples.

He sold his pineapples at Foodland, competing with Dole for sales. Dole eventually undercut his business with lower prices that he could not beat.

His company switched to selling online and at local farmer's markets. Tom did this for many years with success, but the lease on his farm kept rising, making it difficult to make ends meet. During this time, he also began cacao farming on the East Side of the Big Island.

He was hired to be a farm manager at the former Hershey’s Farm in Keaʻau on a plot provided by AMFAC, formerly known as American Factors (Originally H. Hackfeld and Co.), a land development giant and one of the so-called “Big Five” companies in Hawaiʻi with a substantial portion of land holdings managed by Kekela enterprises.

Tom has been farming for the last six years on 14 acres in North Hilo leased from Kamehameha Schools. His farm employs the agroforestry principles of alley cropping, a method of planting that combines rows of trees or shrubs wide enough to create alleyways, and multi-story cropping.

He incorporates ‘ulu (breadfruit), niu (coconut), cacao, and maiʻa (banana) into his system and leases various areas of his farm to other producers.

Tom uses sustainable production techniques and does not spray his plants with pesticides except guinea grass, a nonnative invasive grass that has taken over parts of his land.

Like many other Hawaiian farmers, he does well but has recently struggled with a feral pig problem, for which he had to hire help to trap them. Otherwise, his issues revolve around “two-legged pigs,” people who come onto his land and steal fruit from his trees.

Farming is a way of life for Tom. Money was never the primary focus, and while he did not lose a lot, it wasn’t the most profitable career. Over the years, most of his income has come from his real estate, allowing him to continue farming.

“Don’t quit your day job,” Tom says about farming, especially to young farmers who are just starting.

It is not easy being a full-time farmer on the island, but if you have a passion for it and have done your homework, you can succeed, especially if you can create products that add value to your farm produce, he explains.

Cooperative Experience

Tom had been involved in several other cooperative-based organizations selling guava, taro, ginger, and more before he joined the Hawaiʻi ʻUlu Co-op.

Unfortunately, all the previous cooperatives he joined failed, but he sees great potential within the ʻUlu Co-op. Strong leadership within the co-op is also extremely important, he says, as many of the past co-ops he was a part of failed due to a lack of management.

He believes this is the right time for ʻulu, as it is coming back into the mainstream, and the Hawaiʻi food bill seeks to facilitate local, sustainable food production and consumption methods. Cultural foods like ʻulu have been neglected in favor of mainland crops. Tom reminisces about his childhood growing up on ʻUlu poi — he says this is why his bones are so strong.

As a college student, Tom once brought stuffed ʻUlu to a potluck — it was a hit at the party.

“The ʻUlu phenomenon is back to the future,” Tom says, “because that's what our grandparents did.”

Tom and the Chocolate Factory

Tom has been running his factory and cafe in downtown Hilo for the last eight years. They process about 5000 pounds of cacao annually.

Harvest and fermentation are done on the farm, using a method of fermentation that involves placing the fruit into boxes and covering it with banana leaves. When finished, the cacao beans are sun-dried and then cured for eight to 12 months before being brought to his factory for manufacturing.

Tom offers a range of cacao products, including 70 to 100 percent cacao bars with coconut and banana added, Lava Chocolate with Hawaiian chilies, reapers, and scorpions, and white chocolate with real cocoa butter mixed in matcha or ʻōlena.

The cafe store also offers an assortment of dried fruits, macadamia nuts, cocoa husk tea, and gluten-free ʻulu shortbread cookies dipped in white and dark chocolate.

Like most other local businesses, the shop had a rough patch during the pandemic. Recently, Tom has been working with his daughter — a skilled artist and graphic designer to help promote the business with new marketing strategies.

Within the last year, she also helped rebrand the shop from its previous name, Hawaiian Crown, which was its original focus on pineapple production, to Mahiʻai Made.

Tom is working toward retirement, and his daughter plans to take over the family business to continue farming and chocolate manufacturing.