A group of Kona coffee growers hopes legislators pass a bill that would require businesses to more thoroughly describe the contents of coffee sold in Hawaii — a change that critics claim would increase the price.

At stake is who will control an annual statewide coffee yield of 6 million pounds — half of which is grown on Hawaii island — that is worth about $33 million.

Colehour Bondera, president of the more than 300-member Kona Coffee Farmers Association and owner of the 3-acre Kanalani Ohana coffee farm in Honaunau on Hawaii island, said he believes the issue is about the integrity of a worldwide product, Kona’s famous coffee.

"It all comes down to being honest and protecting the consumer," Bondera said.

The Kona Coffee Farmers Association wants to protect the Kona coffee brand by requiring blended coffee to identify where all of the coffee came from and to list them by specific percentages.

For example, a bag containing 10 percent Kona coffee would be required to have a new label stating that 30 percent of the coffee came from, say, Costa Rica, 30 percent from Columbia and 30 percent from Panama.

"You wouldn’t want to walk into a store and buy something that says ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ and you realize it’s only 10 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and the other 90 percent is another grape," Bondera said. "It’s misleading. And with only 10 percent actual Cabernet Sauvignon, you won’t be tasting the real product. That’s what’s happening with Kona coffee."

The Kona Coffee Farmers Association has begun a campaign to urge state Sen. Rosalyn Baker, chairwoman of the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee, to schedule a hearing on Senate Bill 2097 by Feb. 17 to keep the bill alive this session.

Baker’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday about her intentions for SB 2097.

If the bill passes, "our long-term objective is to have Hawaii do what Georgia does for Vidalia onions, what Idaho does for Idaho potatoes and what Napa does for Napa wines, which is not to let counterfeiters use the name of a specialty agriculture crop," said Bruce Corker, owner of the Rancho Aloha coffee farm on Hawaii island and a board member of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association.

"If you bag up potatoes grown in Maine and try to pass them off as Idaho potatoes, the Idaho potato commission will sue you," Corker said.

Jim Wayman, president of Hawaii Coffee Co., believes SB 2097 is aimed specifically at his company and Honolulu’s other major "coffee blender," Hawaiian Isles Kona Coffee Co.

Wayman said he suspects that gourmet, organic Kona coffee growers are trying to boost the cachet of pure Kona coffee, which commands much higher prices.

Wayman is a board member of the Hawaii Coffee Association, which does not support SB 2097. As the organization’s president in 2004, Wayman helped draft the current requirements that say any bag of coffee using the words "Hawaii, Molokai, Kona, Maui, Kauai or Oahu" has to be labeled "10% Kona Coffee Blend" in lettering no smaller than three-sixteenths of an inch high.

"Kona coffee is pretty much the most successful agricultural crop in Hawaii, and growers have no problem selling out at premium prices," Wayman said. "Hawaiian coffee is regulated labeling-wise more than any other food product. I don’t know why everyone is fighting and complaining. Every year, every single farmer sells every Kona coffee bean they have at a very high price. Everybody seems to be making money."

Wayman believes that consumers are willing to pay $4 or $5 for a bag of coffee clearly marked "10% Kona Coffee Blend" but that fewer would pay $12 for a bag of 100 percent Kona coffee.

"I’m vastly in favor of selling pure Kona coffee because we make more money," Wayland said. "But the average family in Hawaii cannot afford a $12 bag of coffee every week. For $4 to $5 a week, it makes them feel good to buy a product that includes Hawaii coffee. I don’t believe that any consumer who buys a bag of coffee clearly marked ‘10% Kona Coffee Blend’ is fooled into thinking they’re buying 100 percent Kona coffee."

SB 2907 is driven by a small group of organic coffee farmers, Wayman said, who "came into the market over the last 10 years and process and roast their coffee and sell it on the Internet to wealthy people willing to spend $29 or $30 per pound for coffee."

The "vast majority" of Kona coffee growers, Wayman said, sell unprocessed coffee cherries to processors such as Hawaii Coffee Co. to be blended with coffee beans from Central and South America and Indonesia for grocery stores and other retailers.

"If a small group of farmers can cause me, or people like me, to eliminate Kona blend products from the shelf, they will sell more 100 percent Kona coffee," Wayman said. "If there aren’t any $4 bags of Kona blend left on the shelf, they can sell more 100 percent Kona coffee."

Hawaii Coffee Co. buys its coffee from around the world, depending on growing conditions, price and other factors — then adjusts the blend, sometimes daily, Wayman said.

"The first thing this bill does is just about make it impossible to be in the business of blending coffee," Wayman said. "We frequently change the beans in the mix based on price and/or availability. It could be weekly, daily, monthly. (Under SB 2097) every time I change a blending bean, I have to change my packaging. That’s very expensive. Ultimately that’s going to get passed along to the consumers and makes it harder to make it and manufacture it."

Wayman also said requiring his company to break down its coffee formula by percentage "tells my competitors what they have to do to copy my blends. As a businessman I have rights, too."

But Corker believes the Kona coffee brand should not be diluted — and that consumers should be told exactly what brew they’re drinking.

"We think this is the most minimal step toward fair marketing — and protecting the Kona coffee name," he said.