Hawaii Pride begins shipping irradiated fruit to mainland

Thanks to an irradiation technology, Hawaii Pride LLC (Keaau, HI) is shipping Hawaiian fruit to major mainland markets, including Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, Dallas, San Francisco and Detroit. For over 50 years, Hawaiian farmers were denied ready access to the U.S. mainland fruit markets because of a federal fruit fly quarantine.

The fruit is being irradiated using SureBeam electronic pasteurization technology from San Diego, CA-based Titan Corp. Over the years, various other quarantine treatments—including the use of chemicals, heat, or gamma irradiation—were considered or tried. None proved to be fully acceptable since they adversely impacted the appearance and/or nutritional value of fruit.

"We expect to process up to 50 million pounds of papaya and other tropical fruits per year," said John Clark, Hawaii Pride's president and CEO. "We're starting with 2100 boxes per day and ramping up to 150,000-lb per day by December. We could double or triple this production quantity if we so desired."

Hawaii Pride is the first U.S. company to use this electronic irradiation technology on fruit. As a result of the relationship between SureBeam and Hawaii Pride, Titan will receive a royalty payment of 19.95 on profits generated by the new facility.

"We're pleased that mainlanders will now have the opportunity to taste and enjoy authentic tree-ripened papaya just as it tastes in Hawaii," said Clark. "But there is more exciting news: also starting today, the USDA's Agricultural Research Service will begin testing other exotic tropic fruit—dragon fruit, noni, apple bananas, and others—for possible production and shipment to the mainland and international markets. This is a major opportunity for our farmers, because most of these fragile, delicious fruits—which also includes rambutan, lychee, longans, cherimoya, and mangosteen—have never been seen let alone tasted outside of the tropics."

Edited by Scott Hegenbart