The more things change, the more they stay the same, at least at OK Poultry egg farm in Waimanalo. Walk in some days and you’ll still see the friendly face of Carolyn Kaneshiro at the counter to take your order — one flat or two? White or brown? Small, medium, large? Extra large, jumbo? And by the way, how’s the family? Other days, she’s at a nearby table with the egg sorters (sometimes with her daughter), filling flats that will be delivered to restaurants around Oahu.

The farm’s new name is just one letter off from its former one, KK Poultry, changed after being purchased from the egg-farming Kaneshiro family two years ago. Now it’s owned by a group of local and Japanese investors, with a main partner — Hokkai Star Chick, a big poultry farmer in Hokkaido — that wanted to bring the Japanese-style egg to Hawaii.

Those who appreciate egg aesthetics will admire the golden, almost orange hue of a Japanese egg’s yolk. Those who love Japanese comfort food will appreciate the food-porn image of the vibrant raw yolk topping a mound of freshly cooked, steaming hot rice — tamago kake gohan, or egg rice. Stir the raw egg into the hot rice, add a bit of shoyu and enjoy the creamy satisfaction.

In fact, the beloved dish inspired the moniker of OK Poultry’s eggs: Waimana TKG Eggs, for tamago kake gohan. At the farm a flat (30 eggs) of medium-size B-grade eggs runs $8.25. Find their premium counterparts at Don Quijote, Marukai and Nijiya markets. Incidentally, the farm recommends consuming its eggs within two weeks of purchase if eating them raw. Eggs for cooking should be used within about a month.

Though longtime customers continue to frequent the nostalgic store in front of the farm, the new product has drawn aficionados of the Japanese egg, said to be tastier than Western eggs. The key is in the feed, retail manager Mieko Takada said.

“The major difference is it’s all-natural feed with corn and other vegetables and flowers — plant-based foods,” she said. “We also give the chickens soft water. We invested in a filtration system.”

The result: “The eggs are sweeter. The yolk and whites are thicker, almost chunky — you can hold the whites with chopsticks.”

The farm raises some 15,000 brown and white chickens — “brown birds lay brown eggs and white birds lay white eggs,” Takada said. The birds lay one egg every 24 to 27 hours for about two years.

The Kaneshiros are still employed on the farm. Carolyn is there a couple of times a week, while her husband, Roy, who grew up working the farm, serves as a hands-on consultant throughout the week.

“I come whenever they need help,” she said. “Some regulars have been coming here for more than 20 years. I’m lucky I can still see them.”

One such customer is Flora Kennedy of Pearl City, who has driven to Waimanalo for her eggs for more than a decade. She uses them to bake for her grandsons and for breakfast meals, cooked up scrambled and boiled.

“One kid likes only the whites; the other eats the yolks,” she said with a laugh. “I like their eggs. They’re so fresh. And I like to see Carol.”

Carly Molnaire picks up multiple flats as part of her volunteer work, delivering them to various churches each week. She’s also an avid consumer of the farm’s eggs.

“The flavor is clean, fresh and creamy, and the color of the yolk is beautiful,” she said.

Molnaire’s favorite way to eat it: tamago kake gohan, a dish she learned to love from her grandmother, a customer since 1983.

Another family of longtime customers is the Ueokas — and that relationship has extended to the business of chef Wade Ueoka, who with his wife, pastry chef Michelle Karr-Ueoka, runs MW restaurant. In fact, the elder Ueokas make a weekly egg run for the restaurant. MW is among the 40 restaurants and markets that include OK eggs on their shelves and menus.

“I like the color of the yolk, and we feature these eggs in savory dishes sunny side up or soft-poached,” Ueoka said, noting that folks at the farm told him they use paprika and fresh vegetables to achieve the deep color. “It’s richer and creamier than other eggs.”

His wife likes to use the eggs in ice cream and chiffon cake. “The yolk is creamy and tight, and the white is so clear,” she said. “It gives that nice golden color.”

Karr-Ueoka said she and her husband never work with mainland eggs, but an accidental delivery of some reinforced their appreciation of local eggs.

“It’s so funny because we get spoiled,” she said. “We decided to use the mainland eggs for employee meals, and when we cracked some open, Wade was shocked. The whites were all runny. ‘What is this?’ he said. I told him, local eggs are not sitting in storage, then sitting in a Matson container, then sitting in storage again before we get them.”

Going cage-free

OK Poultry is moving toward becoming a cage-free operation, meaning its 15,000 birds will be able to walk around and even fly within communal chicken coops rather than live in individual cages.

“Chickens are less stressed. It’s more responsible farming,” retail manager Mieko Takada said.

Travis Sasaki, one of the farm’s owners, is hoping to get state approval to implement a style of farming that utilizes microorganisms from Okinawa to keep coops clean and reduce salmonella bacteria. It entails sealing off the structure, including covering floors and seams of the walls, to keep the area closed off from outside contaminants. The technique has already been approved for pigs, he said.

Workers who enter coops would be required to don protective jumpsuits to keep the environment germ free.

Cage-free birds are happier, and that means better egg production, Sasaki said.

The farm also sells birds for food after they stop laying eggs. The all-natural feed at the farm makes for a tasty bird, Takada said, but when cage-free farming is implemented, the quality of the chicken meat will be even better.