We’re home, we’re hungry and local entrepreneurs are not about to let us perish.
Products newly made in Hawaii range from oversized lilikoi cookies and custom snacks mixes crafted by a one-woman baking operation, to a pineapple-peach pie from a long-established Big Island sweet shop.
Think of it as sweet, salty, crunchy, chewy snack sustenance: a little relief from the relentless dismal news of the day.
Times are tough. Have a cookie.
Or even better, a slice of pie.
Big Island Candies — which hooked us years ago on its shortbread cookies half-dipped in chocolate — hasn’t let the pandemic slow down product development. In fact, the company says, the downtime created by the downturn in business has been put to use perfecting new treats.
The Hilo-based sweets emporium introduced six items this summer.
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Of highest impact would be the peach-pineapple pie, sold frozen to be baked at home so it can be enjoyed warm with its crust crisped. The new pie is the company’s second — an apple pie was introduced in 2012, but was only available sparingly at the company’s Oahu outlet, at Ala Moana Center.
The stock of both pies is quite reliable now, said Carolyn Iwasaki, retail operations manager for the Ala Moana Center shop. “It’s become such a popular item, they’re doing everything they can to have a good supply.”
Also released since July: dark chocolate-covered coffee brownies, pina colada shortbread cookies (flavored with coconut and pineapple), a coconut mochi brownie, bite-sized macadamia-nut biscotti and a sweet-salty snack mix.
Iwasaki said that although the shop is suffering the loss of tourist traffic, local customers have been discovering the new items and other products previously carried only in Hilo.
For example, the Big Island Crunch Bar, also known as the “fundraiser bar” because it’s often sold by groups for that purpose. For now, the company is donating 10% of sales of the bar to the Boys and Girls Club of the Big Island.
And many customers, Iwasaki said, are buying items that travel well to mail to friends and family, “people that they normally would visit.”
Of course, a good share of purchases are going nowhere but home, providing sustenance while working or binge-watching Netflix. Or just because.
“People just really want comfort at home,” Iwasaki said.
Big Island Candies’ Ala Moana shop, street level near Centerstage, is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, noon to 4 p.m. Sundays; call 946-9213. Order online at bigislandcandies.com.
