Some fruit and spice are being added to macadamia nuts that ML Macadamia Orchards LP used to sell plain.
The Hilo-based company now known as Royal Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Co. launched sales of packaged nut products last week in a strategy to diversify its business and sell more nuts.
Twelve flavored nut products represent the company’s foray into retail sales — a line of nuts with five seasonings (wasabi/soy, barbecue, Maui onion, sea salt and sea salt/cracked pepper), and a line of seven fruit-and-nut clusters (mango/pineapple, papaya/lime, banana nut, Kona coffee/banana, blueberry/pomegranate, passion fruit/orange/guava and papaya/banana).
The 4-ounce bags retailing for $5 to $6 are initially being sold only on Royal Hawaiian’s website, but will be in retail stores in Hawaii and the mainland by the end of the year, said company President Dennis Simonis.
The plan to transition out of selling raw nuts in bulk typically at fixed prices and into retail packaged food sales was announced in March.
Royal Hawaiian said it aims to capitalize on the trend of consumers buying nuts as a healthful snack — an area largely dominated by other kinds of nuts.
“Macadamias are best known as ingredients in indulgent products such as candy and desserts,” the company said in a statement. “Royal Hawaiian believes marketing macadamias as part of a healthy diet to health-conscious consumers will drive incremental nut category sales and profits for retailers.”
As ML Macadamia, the company typically sold all its nuts to Hershey’s Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corp.
The company claims to be the world’s largest grower of macadamia nuts, with 5,070 acres of orchards on Hawaii island which produced 21.8 million pounds of nuts last year and $18 million of revenue.
The move into retail creates more risk, but also the potential for value-added sales.
Simonis said the company wanted to control more of its destiny and now is more than a wholesaler without a brand-name presence.
“It feels great to have our own identity,” he said. The renamed company is using Royal Hawaiian Orchards as its product brand name.
