A continuing effort to turn KonaRed into a big-name beverage brand generated a bigger financial loss last year for the fledgling local company making juice from Hawaii coffee cherry fruit.

Kauai-based KonaRed Corp. reported a $4.6 million net loss last year, compared with a $3.9 million loss the year before, according to an annual report filed Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

KonaRed reported a 39 percent jump in sales to $1.25 million last year from $905,799 the year before. However, the company also spent considerably more to produce and sell its product as part of expansion efforts.

The company, which was founded in 2008 and launched sales about three years ago, said production costs rose substantially last year because it had to rush product to new customers such as Walmart. KonaRed also increased spending on advertising and marketing to about $1 million last year compared with about $140,000 the year before.

KonaRed said it anticipates reducing production costs next year with normalized shipping and larger production runs, but still anticipates spending more on marketing to reach new customers.

Shaun Roberts, co-founder and CEO of KonaRed, said it was a positive year for the growth-stage company, which began selling stock to the public in late 2013 and is "pushing hard" this year to further sales through new initiatives.

"Our first full year as a public company ended strongly and we are pleased with what we’ve accomplished thus far," he said in a statement.

Areas of growth for the company last year included entry into about 1,000 supermarkets and 2,100 Walmart stores on the mainland. The company also introduced two new beverages, KonaRed Coconut Water and KonaRed Green Tea, along with powered versions of KonaRed’s coffee cherry juice.

Earlier this month the company arranged to distribute its beverages in 250 retail stores in Japan through Tokyo-based Asplund Co. Ltd.

One other opportunity being considering by KonaRed is resuming wholesale ingredient sales that it cut out last year, the company said in the report.

To fund growth, KonaRed has largely relied on investors buying stock in the company.

Shares of KonaRed closed Monday at 19.5 cents, down from 21 cents on Friday. KonaRed stock over the last 52 weeks was as high as

77 cents in May and as low as 6 cents in February.