HBuzz

HAD A BLAST, TAKE A DOOR

Providing souvenirs more elaborate (and expensive) than the swiped pool towel is not unfamiliar to Hawaii's hotels. Back in the 1970s, when the Royal Hawaiian installed elaborate, Philippines-made, carved wooden doors – etched with the Hawaii state seal – guests raved. So the hotel sold the doors then for $1,500 ($5,000 today). "Guests bring items home hoping to remember their experience," says Candice Kraughto, the hotel spokeswoman.

Today, the Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hawaii offers everything from its dining room flatware ($18 to $75) to its bestseller beds ($1,200 to $1,300) to its travelers and Web site visitors. At the Vera Wang Boutique at Halekulani, scheduled to open in 2006, guests can buy designer digs, including fine stemware, from the $4,000-a-night Vera Wang Suite.

- Suzanne Slattery

COW TOWN

Like most cattle-producing areas throughout the country, Hawaii sends off the vast majority of its young heifers and steers to the Midwest and Canada for fattening and processing. They come back – if they come back at all – as packaged beef. Until now.

On December 2, Hawaii Beef Producers will be re-opening the Big Island Beef Processing Facility in Paauilo. The facility, which went bankrupt in January 2003 and has just undergone $1.5 million in improvements, will be able to process as many as 110 head of cattle a day, or 66,000 pounds of beef a week. The cattle will be provided by partner ranches – Kahua Ranch, Ponoholo Ranch and RS Ranch. Parker Ranch will also provide some cattle. Approximately 20 percent of the beef will stay on Hawaii shores.

But the re-opening of the Big Island Beef Processing Facility means much more than keeping the cows home. Processing cattle in the Islands enables ranchers to enter a lucrative and growing niche: grass-fed, organic beef. According to Victor Trevino, Hawaii Beef Producers' managing member, the leaner, healthier product currently accounts for 10 percent of the overall demand for beef. However, producers across the nation can only meet 1 percent of the demand.

Hawaii, with its all-year-long moderate weather and all-year-long grass, would be a consistent and reliable supplier of natural cattle. In addition, the state's isolation has kept its herds free of diseases, such as Mad Cow. Earlier this year, Trevino secured agreements to sell Hawaii Big Island Beef at all-natural supermarket chain Whole Foods and natural, organic beef seller Coleman Natural Meats.

"Our marketing plan is to have three different lines of product: organic beef, grass-fed and regular beef," says Trevino. "We are also positioning ourselves away from the Mainland. We have never had a case of Mad Cow disease in Hawaii."

But Trevino and other officials at Hawaii Beef Producers are looking beyond the Mainland for future growth and profits. "The true goal is when Japan opens up [to U.S. beef imports]," says Trevino. "Japan is paying $150 a pound for Kobe beef. On the Mainland, they are paying $1 for regular beef. That's a big, big difference."

- David K. Choo