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| Minh & Wass |
| The Reddekopp family runs the Hawaiian Vanilla Company on the slopes of Mauna Kea. |
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Fog drifts across the rolling green pastures of the Waimea upcountry, which provides a transition from the yin of the sere Kohala Coast to the yang of the tropical Hamakua Coast. Once a major sugarcane growing area, the northeastern coast is now a center of the new Big Island agriculture, as farmers and producers transition the land from sugarcane to specialty crops.Among the growers here is Honolulu native Jim Reddekopp. Ten years ago he was a tour operator who wanted to establish a new life for his family in a rural setting. Despite having no growing experience, he purchased 6 acres on the slopes of Mauna Kea, near Pa‘auilo, hoping to produce a high-value crop. During a dinner conversation, he learned that vanilla came from an orchid. Farmer or not, Reddekopp was convinced vanilla would grow here. After all, this is the Orchid Isle, home to thousands of varieties.
“So we took all that we ever had and laid it on a dream,” he says.
Reddekopp eventually learned about Tom Kadooka, a Kona orchid grower who had been experimenting with vanilla for decades. Kadooka shared his insights, and now Reddekopp’s Hawaiian Vanilla Company is the only commercial vanilla operation in the United States, raising 10,000 vanilla plants in greenhouse facilities. The greenhouses are near a century-old yellow wood-frame building where the family hosts lunches featuring dishes that incorporate vanilla, from hummus to pumpkin soup.
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| Minh & Wass |
| Vanilla ice cream and gingerbread tea cakes at a Hawaiian Vanilla Company lunch |
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At first glance, the economics of Hawaiian vanilla look appealing. A pound can cost $200 wholesale, and 1 acre’s worth is equal to 20 acres of coffee. But making a pound of vanilla takes 100 beans, which must be handpicked. The vanilla plant, a twisting Little Shop of Horrors–style vine with dangling finger-like seedpods, flowers only one day a year and then for only a few hours.So Reddekopp can’t afford to rely on random pollination by bees. Instead, each of the ephemeral, celadon-hued blossoms is hand-pollinated, a delicate task done either with the tip of a fingernail or a slender bamboo pick. Reddekopp; his wife, Tracy; and their three oldest children do much of the pollinating themselves, with other workers helping out during the busiest times.
“Vanilla is the most labor-intensive crop in the world,” Reddekopp says. “You have to have some emotion to make it work and the passion to do it right. When we bring people to work in this operation, we’re bringing in their whole lives. Their joys, their sorrows, and their hopes.”
