Honolulu Freight Service, which transports cargo between North America and Hawaii, has bought the former Love’s Bakery headquarters at 911 Middle St.
The 92,400-square-foot building, built in 1960, comprises more than 3 acres of industrial property and will centralize the company’s main Hawaii operations. The purchase represents the largest property acquisition in the state for Honolulu Freight Service, which was founded in 1936.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Honolulu Freight Service said Monday it plans to renovate the building over the next year, retaining elements of the original Love’s Bakery design, for office and warehouse space. More than 220 employees will be based at the new location.
Love’s Bakery, which employed 231 workers, closed in March 2021 and listed the property for sale in May 2021.
The bakery, established in Honolulu in 1851, shut down after suffering a dramatic revenue decline triggered by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The company also was delinquent on rent and couldn’t qualify for a second forgivable federal Paycheck Protection Program loan after receiving an initial $2.8 million loan in 2020.
Love’s said it lost more than 20% of its revenue in 2020 when sales from hotels, restaurants and other tourist-dependant outlets dried up.
The company spent several decades under the ownership of baking companies on the mainland and Japan before returning to local ownership in 2008.
Love’s had nearly 1,800 commercial customers through which roughly 400,000 bread loaves were distributed weekly along with other baked goods under brand names including Love’s, Wonder Bread, Roman Meal, Hostess, Little Debbie and Mrs. Freshly’s.
The company sold a license to a Portland, Ore.-based bakery to continue selling baked goods under the Love’s name. Financial terms of that deal were not disclosed.
Love’s also sold over 2,500 items through several auctions that generated proceeds from equipment, ingredients, product inventory, memorabilia and other things.
“We look forward to operating out of this highly centralized location in urban Honolulu, which will allow us to enhance services for our customers,” Honolulu Freight Service Executive Vice President Jim Beidleman said in a statement. “Several focus areas include providing seamless end-to-end temperature- controlled shipping and easy access to short-term warehouse storage at a competitive price for local businesses of all sizes.”
Honolulu Freight Service will continue operations from its three current locations on Oahu and one warehouse on Maui, as well as four major West Coast terminals in Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; and Tacoma, Wash. As the largest LCL (less than container load) forwarder to Hawaii, Honolulu Freight Service loads direct containers to Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Hawaii island, expediting transit times and reducing the rehandling of freight.
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Star-Advertiser reporter Andrew Gomes contributed to this story.
