Coffee blends labeled or advertised as Hawaii coffee will be required to include a minimum of 51% of island- grown coffee by weight by July 1, 2024, if House Bill 1517 passes.

The bill would increase the current 10% minimum to 20% by July and then to 30% by July 2023. It would also allow businesses to label or advertise their coffee as “All Hawaiian” only when the coffee included is entirely composed of green coffee beans grown in Hawaii.

HB 1517 is scheduled to be heard in the House Finance Committee today.

Similar bills have been introduced in previous legislative sessions.

“The goal line has been coming up year in and year out,” said Christopher Manfredi, executive director of the Hawaii Coffee Association. “I think it’s time to pass it. This is what the people want.”

Some Hawaii coffee growers would prefer 100% of coffee beans to be from Hawaii in order to be allowed the Hawaii coffee label, said Manfredi, who represents Hawaii coffee producers from every part of the supply chain — from growers to retailers such as Honolulu Coffee Co. and Ka‘u Farm and Ranch.

The 51%-by-2024 goal represents a compromise to allow his fellow island producers to compete fairly with others that use lower- percentage blends with the same Hawaii coffee label, Manfredi said.

Hawaii coffee beans are also held to specific standards including the size of the bean, the flavor profile, the amount of insect damage and even the amount of moisture in each bean. The current 10% minimum means that any coffee with the Hawaii label could include 90% of beans that don’t need to meet the same standards, Manfredi said.

“It’s not that blended coffees are necessarily bad,” he said. “What we object to is the below-standard-quality coffees that are used to make the blend … and the fact that they’re able to carry the names of Hawaii’s coffee-growing regions.”

House Reps. Richard Onishi (D, South Hilo-Keaau- Honuapo), Sharon Har (D, Kapolei-Makakilo) and Sam Kong (D, Halawa-Aiea- Newtown) voted with reservations for the bill during a Feb. 11 hearing. Onishi and Har suggested conducting a market study to reveal any unforeseen impacts the bill might have on the local coffee market.

“I’m not so sure that the person who’s only growing coffee and selling to the wholesaler is going to benefit,” Onishi said, “because, in essence, the higher the percentage of coffee, the more coffee per day. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the farmer is going to get a better price.”

Har said at the Feb. 11 hearing that increasing the percentage of island-grown beans will likely result in higher prices. She was concerned that restaurants might choose to replace locally sourced coffee on their menus with more affordable blends from outside the state.

Changing the minimum blend requirement for Hawaii coffee could also affect customers of restaurants where 10% blends were on the menu for years, said Victor Lim, government relations leader for the Hawaii Restaurant Association and a McDonald’s franchisee.

“When you force a lot of the commercial restaurants like us, that try to support local and use the 10% blend, and to require us to change the formulation, it would change the taste profile that our customers are used to,” Lim said. “And it would substantially increase the costs to us.”

Lim said McDonald’s has been using the 10% blend in its restaurants for about 50 years, and customers are accustomed to the taste.

But increasing the percentage of island-grown beans adds to the Hawaii brand, Manfredi said.

“We’ve heard a number of testifiers say that the flavor is different than Hawaiian- grown coffee, and that’s right. It’s very different,” Manfredi told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “And to undermine our origin names by calling it Hawaiian grown, even if it’s 10%, undermines all the growers that have invested in promoting these premium brands.”

Lim said increasing the percentage of local coffee beans would likely drive up costs for restaurants and especially for growers, who have already been hit by coffee leaf rust, which began affecting Hawaii coffee plants in late 2020, and the coffee borer beetle, which was first reported on the Big Island in 2010.

But to Manfredi, maintaining the integrity of the Hawaii coffee label is important and will help coffee farmers.

“We need to associate Hawaiian coffee with ultrahigh quality to be able to broaden the profit margins for growers,” he said.