The Poi Company Press Launch, 1998

The Poi Company introduced itself to Honolulu on the morning of Wednesday, 24 June 1998, in the Garden Lanai of The Pacific Club and the garden beside it, with two tents on the lawn. The Club’s function memorandum set the room from eight o’clock, expected a hundred covers, and ran the event from 10.30 until noon.

The company had been renamed that year. John Thomas’s green POI mark had replaced the old Hoʻai brand, the factory and warehouse on Kopke Street had been bought in May, and the new poi mill would go in that October. This was the morning the whole thing was put in front of people.

Everything served was made of taro. Poi cocktails by Owen Ho, in wine glasses over coconut-milk ice cubes. Hawaiian stew with poi vinaigrette, and poi muffins, by Alan Wong. Poi mochi by Uncle Lani. Poi bread by Dr Terry Shintani. Poi banana bread by Tony Ho and Lisa Siu. Poi ice cream. There was an upright piano, a podium and a microphone, and Puamana to entertain.

The press campaign was run by Sheila Donnelly & Associates. These seventy-four photographs are by the photographer engaged for the launch, scanned from the original negatives. They have not been published before.

Among the guests was Mazie K. Hirono, then Lieutenant Governor of Hawaiʻi and now the State’s senior United States Senator. She wrote the following day:

Thank you very much for the chance to taste some of your products. I enjoyed the poi delectables and seeing you and Marjorie again at the Pacific Club yesterday.

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Who signed the book

Twenty-four guests signed the visitors’ book that morning. A hundred were expected, so this is a fraction of the room — but it is the fraction that stopped at the table. Names only; the book also recorded addresses and telephone numbers, which are not reproduced here.

• Irmgard F. Aluli
• Manu Boyd — Office of Hawaiian Affairs
• Amy Botticelli — KITV
• Dow V. Tucker — KCCN
• Corbett Kalama — First Hawaiian Bank
• Brian Lau — First Hawaiian Leasing
• Steve Marcuccilli — First Hawaiian Leasing
• Howard P. Chee — office of Councilman John DeSoto
• Ramón de la Peña — Kauai Experiment Station
• James Leong — Dave’s Ice Cream
• Bruce Keawe — Kamehameha Schools
• Thomas Lemn — Kamehameha Schools
• Robert Ponce
• Jeannie Bonafe
• Kelvin Shigemura
• Kazu Inouye
• Richard R. Lowe
• Don Sorum
• Carole Bruno
• Eloise Hayes
• Robin Midkiff
• Keala Kinimaka
• Tony Guerrero

The rest of the company’s photographs — the Kopke Street factory, the trade shows, the Kamehameha Day floats and the products — are in the Poi Company Image Archive.