Gourmet Hawaii Kona Coffee Processed By Kona Pacific Farmers Cooperative

100 Years and Counting - Cooperative Processes Premium Hawaii Kona Coffee

Kona Pacific Farmers Cooperative has been processing Kona coffee in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii since 1910 and is the United States’ oldest coffee cooperative. Currently the Cooperative processes more than two million pounds of coffee cherry (fruit) each year.

The facility has its origins in 1910 when the pineapple business using the structure failed and the building was converted into a coffee processing plant. The facility had been used for tobacco before it was used for pineapple processing.

Also see: The Top Ten Coffees in the World

The Kona Pacific Farmers Cooperative originated as two separate organizations, the first being the Sunset Coffee Cooperative and the second being the Pacific Coffee Cooperative, which had been founded by Mr. Y. Noguchi and 100 other Kona coffee farmers in 1955.

Just one year after the Pacific Coffee Cooperative formed the Sunset Cooperative formed, being founded by Mr. Takeshi Kudo along with his father and about 150 Kona coffee farmers (out of about 800 at the time).

Initially the Sunset Cooperative brought their Kona coffee cherry to the Pacific Coffee Cooperative for wet milling. Together the two groups began to market Kona coffee as a gourmet product that began to garner a premium price. Along with better marketing came improved milling and a general revival in the Kona coffee industry which had been undergoing hard times.

The coffee processing plant was purchased by the Cooperative in 1967 and the coffee crop was wet processed. Then the coffee parchment was sold to the Cooperative which milled it into green (unroasted) coffee beans to be marketed for sale.

Eventually Sunset Coffee Cooperative (aka Kona Farmers Cooperative) merged with Pacific Coffee Cooperative, becoming Kona Pacific Farmers Cooperative in 1993. Today the group consists of about 100 members of coffee as well as nut growers on three to five acre farms in the Kona Coffee Belt.

Kona Pacific Farmers Cooperative offers tours of their facility which is located about 3.5 miles down Napoopoo Road which leads to Kealakekua Bay. The Cooperative includes Macadamia Nuts as well as Kona coffee.

One unique aspect of the processing done by the Cooperative is that they use only solar and organic fuels (e.g., macadamia nut shells), also trying to avoid insecticides, fungicides, and fumigants during growing.

In their logo the Kona Pacific Farmers Cooperative uses a Kona Nightingale, the famed animals that were used to haul the coffee crop from the rugged field areas to the coffee mills and drying and processing areas.

Today the Cooperative considers the Nightingale a metaphor for the fact that their organization is “Stubborn About Quality” and follows HDOA and CQI grading and cupping standards.

If you are in Kealakekua Bay stopped by the Cooperative’s Farmer’s Retail and Roasting Facility which is open seven days a week from 9 to 4:30. Coffee tours are ongoing until 3:15.

To read about more Kona Coffee Farms see Kona Coffee Farms, Tours, and Coffeehouses.