The 170-year run of isle fresh bread and treats from Love’s Bakery ends

Armloads of bread and an outpouring of aloha left the Love’s Bakery factory outlet store in Kalihi Wednesday as the venerable kamaaina company ended nearly 170 years in business.

There were also many lei and hugs given, photos taken and well wishes exchanged among roughly 100 of the bakery’s 231 employees who gathered outside the company’s Middle Street plant and headquarters.

Jeri Arcangel from Aliamanu was among the day’s first few customers who arrived ahead of the factory store opening just before 6:30 a.m. She picked up some of the bakery’s last loaves to make bread pudding for her church.

“I just wanted to be here this morning because it’s the last day,” Arcangel said before tearing up. “Excuse me, I’m just getting emotional. I’m so sad that it’s closing.”

Jade Kaneshiro, the store’s head sales clerk, who has worked 30 years at Love’s and throughout the day accumulated lei around her neck, thanked customers for their support over the years.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. “Thank you for supporting us.”

To another regular customer who works for TheBus, which has its main operations facility next door, Kaneshiro said: “Braddah, I’m not going to see you anymore unless I catch your bus.”

Mike Mitsuka, a Moanalua Gardens resident who got to know Kaneshiro when she managed a downtown Love’s retail outlet near where he works, came into the factory outlet on his way to work one last time to say aloha to his friend and take a selfie.

“I grew up in Hawaii and Love’s was always on the table,” he said. “We’re ohana. We’re Hawaii. We’re family. I didn’t think it was going to get to this. When the word came down (about Love’s closing), it was just heartbreaking.”

Love’s was established in 1851 by Scottish immigrant Robert Love, and initially specialized in “re-baking” bread from sailing ships that had become inedible and selling biscuits called hardtack.

Over many decades, Love’s expanded to become Hawaii’s dominant commercial bakery that in recent years served 1,800 customer accounts including grocery stores, restaurants and hotels receiving 400,000 loaves of bread every week.

The company also produced other brands of bread and pastries, including Wonder Bread, Roman Meal, Milton’s, Home Pride, Hostess, Little Debbie, Svenhard’s Pastries, Weight Watchers and Mrs. Freshly’s.

Ownership of Love’s had passed through several generations of the Love family to mainland giant Continental Baking Co. in 1960, then to First Baking Co. of Japan in 1981 and then to local management in 2008.

On March 1, the company announced the planned shutdown, saying a 20% sales decline during the coronavirus pandemic pushed it over the edge after years of trying to deal with increased competition and plant inefficiencies.

“We have worked diligently to cut expenses, to maintain our market share and to remedy our operational difficulties, however under the current business environment we are no longer able to continue operations,” the company said in a letter informing the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations that all 231 Love’s employees would be laid off.

In addition to the main facility, retail outlets in Kaneohe, Hilo, Kahului, Lihue and Kailua-Kona closed.

Hawaiian Airlines, which began flying Love’s products to the neighbor islands five years ago to continue a service that Aloha Air Cargo provided for more than 30 years, flew its last Love’s load last week.

Gail Hayashi, Hawaiian cargo sales manager, said in a statement that airline workers bid Love’s drivers goodbye, conveyed gifts and reminisced about their work packing planes with baked goods.

“When the drivers dropped off their final shipments last week, our employees were heartbroken,” Hayashi said. “You know, they saw those drivers every day, and because of that, we all became good friends — like family.”

Love’s stopped all production last week, and much of the inventory at the factory store Wednesday was collected from supermarkets and filled most shelves that appeared headed for depletion by a steady stream of customers.

Several varieties of bread and buns branded with the Love’s name and logo will continue to be sold on local supermarket shelves under a licensing deal in which Oregon-based Franz Family Bakery will make the bread on the mainland and ship it to Hawaii.

References to the arrangement could be seen on recently made shirts worn by some Love’s workers and proclaiming “Love’s Est. 1851” on the front, and “Was fresh .. Now frozen!” on the back.

Outside the store and factory Wednesday, Love’s delivery drivers, engineers, mechanics, machine operators and other workers gathered to take photos with each other and in groups that included an “old time” crew from a former Love’s factory in Kapahulu.

Workers also held signs — many that simply said “Mahalo” — and cheered to passing drivers on Middle Street who honked their vehicle horns.

Frank Hunter, a Love’s engineer who held a sign reading “Mahalo nui,” said the big commercial bakery had a family feel.

“It is my family,” he said.

Gerry Cadavona, a Love’s mechanic and engineer, helped manage traffic in the store’s parking lot and reflected on how the state’s biggest producer of fresh bread will no longer exist.

Boyd Isnec, a Love’s maintenance mechanic, held the factory store door open for visitors during much of the morning as he welcomed and thanked customers while also chatting with longtime coworkers for one last day.

“We’re trying to come together and comfort everybody,” he said.