Puueo Poi bids aloha

After about three-quarters of a century in business, Puueo Poi Factory is now part of Hilo’s history.

The last day of production at the Kekuanaoa Street facility was Aug. 11. Gilbert Chang, 75, is retiring after 27 years at the helm of the business his father, Leslie, founded and ran for about a half-century.

“My father started Puueo Poi in Puueo in the ’40s,” Chang told the Tribune-Herald on Thursday. “He actually started in Waipio Valley, but he got wiped out by the flood and tidal waves, so he moved up to Hilo to Puueo. During (World War II), I heard stories of people lining up all the way down to the middle bridge. From where Puueo Poi shop was, maybe a hundred yards or so, they were lining up with their flour bags to buy poi. Before, they used to bring their own bags.”

Poi is the boiled and pounded or finely milled paste of the underground stem, or corm, of the taro plant — which is known as “kalo” in Hawaiian. It’s the starchy staple of the Polynesian diet, and Waipio, where Chang’s family once lived, grows the wetland kalo favored in Hawaii for poi production.

“My grandfather started down in Waipio growing rice. My father started doing the poi … wrapped it in ti leaves, threw it on the donkey and take it up Waipio Valley to deliver,” Chang said. “My father, he went around Waipio delivering house to house at one time. He learned to speak a little Hawaiian, because they would say, ‘Boy, come in, come in and eat.’ Because that was the culture at the time.”

According to Chang, at one time, the old Puueo Street location shipped the product to other islands.

“I heard stories from my father. They would put it in big salmon barrels at that time. Not like today, they didn’t have plastic bags, things like that. So they would take it down to the wharf, and the guy, the inspector, he grabbed a broom handle. He’d stick the handle in. He’s looking for okolehao. ’Cause in Waipio Valley, people were known to make okolehao.”

Okolehao, for the uninitiated, is an indigenous distilled spirit made from the root of the ti plant. The name, which means “iron bottom,” came from the cast-iron try pots — which were used to render blubber during Hawaii’s whaling era — that were converted into stills.

Chang said the company moved its operations to Kekuanaoa Street in 1963. At one time, the factory made a multitude of products, including kulolo, luau leaves and lau lau, but didn’t produce the quantity of poi once prepared at the Puueo location.

“When we were in Puueo it was maybe 5,000, 6,000 pounds a week, because we were making poi every day, five days a week,” Chang said. “But when we moved here, there were a lot of people starting to make poi, and Honolulu (poi) started to come here, so we ended up doing it three times a week. But we were still doing about 3,000 at that time.

“When I started, we were going all over the island, because we were selling over 20 different products. But in the end, I ended up the way they started. I only made kulolo besides poi at the end. Before that, I made everything under the sun, or tried to.”

Chang said adversity led to changes that allowed him to run the operation with only three employees. Technological advancements included a giant pressure cooker that boiled a massive amount of corms quickly and a milling machine Chang said made the poi “as smooth as a baby’s okole.”

Other changes occurred, as well, such as Waipio farmers making their own poi and selling it at roadside stands, which forced Chang to obtain wetland taro from Kauai suppliers, and also cultural changes which impacted consumer habits.

“Before, it was a lot of Hawaiian people that ate a lot of poi every day. That was their thing, just eating poi,” he said. “But today, when they have parties, like graduation, baby luau — you need to have the poi when you have the luau. Even if it’s only one small, little cup, you know.”

Chang said at the end, he was making 1,000 to 1,500 pounds of poi a week, but added, “I had no problem selling the poi.” The only retail suppliers of the poi were KTA Super Stores and Sack N Save, but a lot of customers still got their poi directly from the factory, he said.

“If the road was better, we’d sell more poi,” Chang said, referring to the short but bumpy, pot-holed private drive off Kekuanaoa leading to the factory.

Chang said he tried to sell the business but found no takers. He and wife Okyo have a daughter who works for the county, and Chang said “she could handle,” but he told her she was better off staying put.

“You got vacation with pay, sick leave, retirement. It’s better she stay with the county. If a business was run the way they run the county, they would go broke,” he said, laughing.

Asked what he would do next, Chang said he might take up wood carving or perhaps travel with his wife, “because she likes to travel.”

“I’ve been doing this so long, I thought when I sell the place when I retire, I would be overjoyed. But I don’t feel that. It’s like you want to retire and you don’t. I wasn’t doing a lot at the end, but it was something to do to keep me busy. Now, I’ll have to find something else,” he acknowledged.

“I would like to thank everyone for allowing me to have a good run in this business. You know, I’ve been very fortunate when I took over this business. Everything went well. No one got hurt. I never had any major breakdowns. It’s allowed me to make a decent living in Hilo.”

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.