Welcome to Captain Kona, Captain Cook, Big Island, Hawaii!
Captain Kona Inc., A Hawaii C Corp, was founded by Ken Sale, in March, 2018 to make a viable business from the coffee harvests of his properties. Starting in 2015, Ken Sale, a successful California business owner from the San Francisco Bay Area, started vacationing on the Big Island, and settled in to the laid-back, lush and tropical Captain Cook area. Ken bought some fixer-upper house properties in Captain Cook, to convert to vacation rentals, and spent the next three years updating all of them and offering vacation rentals to Island visitors, his favorite being the oceanfront Kona Breeze house, on Kealakekua Bay, the view from the backyard pictured on the front and back of every coffee bag!
One of the other houses Ken bought was a 5 bedroom house above the highway (up one of the bumpiest roads on the island!), with ocean views, and 5 acres of mature coffee trees (Plantation House, Farm number 1). Being such a big fan of Kona Coffee, Ken decided to purchase a few more coffee farms in the area, and start the Captain Kona brand.
Plantation House, Farm number 1
With the passage of Hawaii County Bill 108, restricting vacation rentals, Ken decided to exit the vacation rental business, and focus on the coffee business. After opening the Hawaii C Corp, Captain Kona Inc., Ken also recently purchased the old Koa Coffee mill on Greenwell Mountain Road, which finally closed escrow in March, 2019, with 4 pulping lines, double-dry deck, 10 dryers, a complete dry mill production line with huller, catador, screen-sizing table, gravity table, optical sorter and a coffee roasting and packaging room.
Captain Kona Coffee Mill
Now, having all the processing capacity of our large coffee mill, Captain Kona is launching a Kona Coffee Cherry Purchasing Program for local farmers, starting August 1st, 2019. We leased the lower level, southwestern corner unit at the Choicemart Shopping Center on the Hwy, as our new local office and Coffee Cherry Drop-Off Station (Where Pearls used to be).
Choicemart Center Office and Cherry Drop-Off Station
With our recent 57 acre acquisition, we are now up to 20 farms on about 200 acres. Our well-capitalized company and growing base of dedicated employees continue our goal of becoming one of the best local companies that does things efficiently, the right way, as a trusted partner, with all of our valued vendors and clients. We are open to additional farm acquisitions, at the right price, and welcome everyone to work with us, from mainland customers, to local growers, local wholesale and local retail partners. As we are a fairly new company, our real story is yet to come, as we look forward to a bright, sunny, successful future, (with no more Vog), aloha!
