Consumers in Hawaii want safe food, but there is a gap between the amount of regulation food purchasers want and the food safety rules that Hawaii’s farmers are willing to implement.

"When people say food quality, you should be able to think automatically that it’s safe," Victor Kimura, vice president of Kyo-ya Management Co., told lawmakers yesterday. "Quality and safety should be synonymous."

Kimura was among 14 representatives of Hawaii’s food industry who spoke at a joint House-Senate informational briefing on food safety as the Legislature considers whether to introduce statewide food safety legislation this session.

For Kimura, whose company operates the Sheraton Waikiki and other hotels in the Starwood chain, food safety in Hawaii requires discipline along the entire supply chain.

"In the hotel industry we apply, through Department of Health certification, good practices once we receive the product," Kimura said. "What we are asking for is for the legislators’ consideration to mandatorily enforce (good agricultural practices), with a deadline."

For Hawaii farmers, however, new state-level food safety mandates seem premature, especially since the federal government will soon implement its own set of standards after President Barack Obama signed federal food safety legislation into law last year.

"The situation that we want to avoid is to have federal regulations layered on top of state regulations with, then, a third set of private stipulations (for each purchaser)," said Chris Manfredi, vice president of the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation.

Sen. Sam Slom, Senate Agriculture Committee member, agreed that a layer of state-level food safety certification would be bad for business.

"The industry is regulating itself," said Slom (R, Diamond Head-Hawaii Kai). "We don’t have the problems that they have on the mainland. Certainly we should be aware and we should be proactive, but I think what they are saying is that they are doing the things that need to be done."

Whether or not the Legislature addresses it this session, food safety certification is becoming more of a necessity in a market where the biggest buyers demand certified products.

"Our customers are demanding that we only source product from food safety-certified companies," said Letitia Uyehara, marketing director for Armstrong Produce.