Maureen Datta

Maureen Datta, Rosetta Sepulvida, and Jimmy Watts at Adaptations Hub by Ronit Faul

“The closure of all the restaurants, with about 6 exceptions, shut down more than half of our income. Then our CSA quadrupled, over the course of about four weeks, from 125 families to more than 400 families who are signed up now.”

Maureen Datta owns Adaptations Inc, a regional food hub. She lives with her husband Tane in South Kona, HI on their seven-acre diversified farm, which has been certified organic since the 1980s. Currently serving as Secretary of the Hawai’i Farmers Union United, Maureen is known affectionately amongst food system nerds as the mother of Hawai’i food hubs. We caught up with Maureen on July 14, 2020, roughly 4 months after Hawai’i’s first recorded case of COVID-19.

Aloha Maureen, can you introduce yourself, and provide a little background on what you do, and what life was like for you before COVID?

My husband Tane and I own Adaptations, which is a certified organic farm in South Kona. The farm was established in 1979 and incorporated in 1993, so we've been farming in Kona for nearly 40 years. In addition to a food hub, we've also had a CSA for almost 18 years. Fortunately, we had an online marketplace already intact before COVID hit, so that certainly helped a lot. Our food hub oversees a twice-weekly harvest consolidation from about 70 Hawai’i Island family farms. Today we distribute the produce to about 6 restaurants, but before COVID it was 86 restaurants.

Beforehand, we had eleven processors, fourteen retail stores, and three schools. Of course, now all the schools are shut. Processors are pretty limited, those who stayed in production, and the retail stores are still going strong. So, you know, adapting to the new normal. Pre COVID life, I was greeting people with a hug, enjoying live music with friends, picking up grab and go for lunch. I swam in Kealakekua Bay three days a week. That's shut down now. It just reopened last weekend. I was visiting my mother downtown in her assisted living facility, in her apartment helping her stay organized, and being able to visit with her made a huge difference in her life. It's a challenge now to keep her connected to the community and family.

“We didn't realize we were a food hub until we heard the term. Back around 2013, when the USDA came up with that term and I recognized what it meant, I found my people.”

It sounds like you had a lot of the things in place to be ready to kind of pivot and handle COVID. More so than a lot of people I spoke to. It's remarkable you've had a food hub since 1979. Way ahead of the curve here.

We didn't realize we were a food hub until we heard the term. Back around 2013, when the USDA came up with that term and I recognized what it meant, I found my people. Which was really exciting because we had founded this whole concept out of need because no one distributed the produce that we were growing. We were working on things like specialty crops with Hawai'i regional cuisine chefs. So we had to establish our own distribution system because the wholesalers didn't really understand what we were growing or who we were trying to market to. And they didn't really have the capacity to stretch that way. The food hub was kind of born out of necessity, and it started with just three farmers, and now each week we buy anywhere from 45 to 70 farmers each week.

Can you take me back to, say, when we were told to stay-at-home, when all restaurants, the hotels, all that business just disappeared overnight? What was your experience and how did you pivot?

Well, my personal lifestyle changed quite a bit. I mean, now I throw shaka and blow kisses, but no more hugging. I livestream music events, but no more live music. I prepare most of my food at home now to take with me to the food hub rather than stopping for grab and go because each time you get out of your car, you're exposing yourself to who knows what. I now talk with my mom on the phone rather than visiting her in person every day. Now I visit her twice a week. They set up an outdoor facility where we can visit with each other and that's keeping her connected.

Our business really shifted quite a lot, and just because we had a lot of the infrastructure in place, we still had to do a lot of adjusting to respond to the new demand. Our business has shifted from about 20% CSA retail sales and 80% wholesale customers pre COVID, to about an even 50% each. The big difference is that during one week in March, we lost 60% of our wholesale restaurant customers. So, we went from 86 customers to 6 restaurant customers. That was a tremendous shock.

“…during one week in March, we lost 60% of our wholesale restaurant customers. So, we went from 86 customers to 6 restaurant customers. That was a tremendous shock.”

The closure of all the restaurants, with about 6 exceptions, shut down more than half of our income. Then our CSA quadrupled, over the course of about four weeks, from 125 families to more than 400 families who are signed up now. At one point in April, we had to stop accepting new members while we arranged for a second round of CSA deliveries, and we secured new pickup locations. We added Friday delivery to what was previously only Tuesday distribution. So, we coped with the influx of members by splitting the week in half and kind of sharing the load. And that involved a lot of twisting and turning and adjusting staff schedules and things.

Saffron D
atta photographed by Ronit Faul
We're still selling to the retail stores, Whole Foods, and grocery stores. The Kona Community Hospital actually has been buying local produce now for almost two years, and they've upped their game. So, not only are they continuing to buy from us, but those purchases have increased, and they have a wonderful dietician there now, who's a vegan. She does plant-based offerings for every meal in addition to meat options. We are really grateful for that kind of support.

***When you talk about the eighty-six restaurants down to six, is there something that stands out about those six that allowed them to be able to be resilient through this time?***
What really stood out for me is that they are one hundred percent chef-owned restaurants. They're independent of resorts or chains so they could make their own decisions and decide what was right for them and for their staff. Restaurants are very tight, right? They have strong 'ohana, and they consider their staff as family so they wanted to keep everyone safe, and at the same time recognize that everyone still needs an income.

“It's been a different story for our farm than from the food hub. At the farm we had to lay off everyone instantly because our income went to zero.”

Speaking of employees, how many people do you employ?

We have eight full-time staff and two part-time staff. It's been a different story for our farm than from the food hub. At the farm we had to lay off everyone instantly because our income went to zero. We have a diversified farm, we grow tropical fruits; we have vegetables and herbs and raised beds and we grow edible flowers, but our main income generator was microgreens. And the primary market for that is the high-end restaurants. Because we lost so much of that income, we had to lay everyone off who had been on the farm.

So while the food hub actually just got crazy busier- the farm is just my husband and myself right now, and one staff member who stayed on to volunteer one day a week, and that helps. We're just now rehiring someone to help on the farm and we're going to be inviting back our volunteers next week.

“In establishing a new normal for the farm, it made me realize how hard it is for so many of the farms that supply us -it wasn't an easy pivot.”

In establishing a new normal for the farm, it made me realize how hard it is for so many of the farms that supply us -it wasn't an easy pivot. We've had to transform our greenhouse from these little miniature farm rows of microgreens to these plants that are much taller. Our greenhouse now looks like a jungle. Before you could look across it, it was like a giant field, and now it's more like a food forest with eggplants, green beans, carrots, bok choy, cooking greens and kales and things that we'd never really grown before undercover. And it's good because we've had a really challenging last 18 months with so much rain in Kona.

Edible flowers grown at Adaptations, photograph by Ronit Faul

What food system vulnerabilities were exposed for you during this crisis?

There are so many, but just to focus on a couple, securing packaging became an instant challenge because suddenly we needed to portion and pack way more items. We aim for zero waste solutions for packaging and the urgency of our need really exposed our dependence on these imported items. No one's really producing these things in Hawai'i. Everyone who is trying to do the right thing for the environment and shifting to plant-based plastics means importing these from other places like Colorado and China. There was an urgency to secure as much of that as possible before any supply chains might be disturbed, so that was a bit of a panic. Luckily, we have really long-standing relationships with our suppliers and they saw our need and really took care of us.

“The biggest vulnerabilities were transportation problems.”

The other thing is the dependency on Young Brothers. The limited choices that we have for inter-island transportation really became clear. Getting things between islands has always been a barrier for local producers because it adds a certain dollar amount per pound-it's just inevitable. No other state really has to contend with that, so being an island state has highlighted that vulnerability, and then Young Brothers reduced their sailing, and then the airlines had to reduce the number of flights they had because of no more visitors. So that's a huge vulnerability for our state. So, I'd say the highlight, the biggest vulnerabilities were transportation problems.

One of the beautiful things that's evolved here is that we're now a hundred percent kamaʻāina customer-based. We're no longer so dependent on the visitor dollar, and that's a lifelong dream realized.

Tane Datta, photographed by Ronit Faul
***Something that you helped me see early on, was the inequity of SNAP/EBT clientele not being able to participate in online purchasing. Can you share your experience in accepting EBT?***

One of the beautiful things that's evolved here is that we're now a hundred percent kamaʻāina customer-based. We're no longer so dependent on the visitor dollar, and that's a lifelong dream realized. Overall, our sales for the food hub are down about maybe 5% altogether, but I can live with that, and it gives me the motivation to extend more customer service to our members and to kamaʻāina.
We've been a SNAP/EBT retailer since 2014. Right now, they have to come into our office to swipe their card in person and to enter their PIN. That really limits our service to at-risk families because transportation is a huge barrier for low-income families, especially with the limited availability of public transit services on our island. The increased risk of exposure to COVID for bus riders is also a concern and a barrier.

So as much as I want to serve more at-risk and low-income families, the big, huge barrier is that they have to pay in person, and I would like to see that change. The sooner USDA is able to make that change and allow online payments with SNAP/EBT, it will transform food security for low-income families.

The sooner USDA is able to make that change and allow online payments with SNAP/EBT, it will transform food security for low-income families.

Five years from now, I'd like to see that our SNAP/EBT CSA members have been enjoying the ability to pay online and to use their benefits so that we can better serve our rural customers all around the Island.

Are there other silver linings from this time, and anything happening because of the pandemic that you'd like to see stay in place when we get through this?

Back when our food hub was just forming and Peter Merriman invited us to be agricultural consultants to the newly formed Hawai'i Regional Cuisine chefs, he was a big proponent of feeding Hawai'i from Hawai'i, you know, and all of those HRC chefs really believed in it. Probably the most vocal was Sam Choy, who kept telling us, "feed the people, feed the people, feed the people." And so here we are 30 years later, fully realizing that vision, and so that is a huge silver lining.

“I really would like to see regional food hubs in every district… and then linking them up so that they can share abundance between the regions.”

I really would like to see regional food hubs in every district. And that's what HFUU is really working towards- creating food hubs where there are none, and then linking them up so that they can share abundance between the regions. One thing that's become really clear to me, (we just met for strategic planning this past weekend with the 13 HFUU chapters across the state), is that everyone has different regional challenges. They have different landscapes. They have different growing conditions and you don't really understand that because if you just stay in your little provincial area, you become kind of myopic and don't really see the variety across the state. What that gives us is diversity, and diversity is strength.

So, if I'm having an overproduction of citrus, I can look across the state and say, okay, where is citrus lacking? With this network, hopefully, it'll happen sooner than five years, but that's our biggest goal right now-to create new food hubs and link them up with a system so that we can share abundance across the state. And hopefully, that'll be facilitated by inexpensive interstate transportation, and the government will recognize how important it is to make that happen. Find a solution.

Jen Gow and Maureen Datta at Adaptations Food Hub, photograph by Ronit Faul

Prior to the pandemic, one of my blind spots was how crucial refrigerated infrastructure, like trucks and cold storage really are to the whole system.

It's not something you really think about and I have to say there's a lot of improvement needed with our ports in Hawai'i to maintain the cold chain-a huge barrier for local producers. Fortunately, we were able to talk with one of the County council members for Kohala, Tim Richards who is saying that's a number one priority for him. He wants to try to improve our port infrastructure so that pallets of fresh produce aren't sitting out in the hot sun waiting to be picked up; just a lot of room for improvement there. I'd like to see that be a part of how we prop up our sovereignty.

Circling back to the hospital. Recognizing that institutional purchasing really could be a key new market to potentially replace the restaurants and hotel markets, how difficult was it to get into the hospital? Did you lobby them directly, or did they come to you?

It's an interesting story because it's similar to Farm to School. Now the idea of farm to school is being expanded to farm to state, and that includes hospitals and prisons and the military. There's a lot of demand sitting there waiting for legislation to get its act together and get out of the way. There's a lot of barriers, misguided food safety concepts that are just archaic that need to be left in the dust as soon as possible.

There's a lot of demand sitting there waiting for legislation to get its act together and get out of the way. There's a lot of barriers, misguided food safety concepts that are just archaic that need to be left in the dust as soon as possible

The reason that we were invited to supply Kona Hospital was because of Chef Greg Christian of Beyond Green Partners, who was hired by the Kona Community Hospital to help them shift from reheating prepared foods, to cooking from scratch with fresh, local produce. And because Greg knew of our food hub from his experience with the Farm to School pilot program in Kohala, he knew what we were about. He understood what a food hub was, and the fact that we were almost across the street from the hospital made it simple for him to say to the staff there, "Hey, let's just go across the street and visit, and see what's going on, and let's just open your eyes to what could possibly be."

Photography by Ronit Faul

They contacted one of my board members, Shannon Ramirez, of the Kona Chapter of the Farmer's Union board. She arranged for various tours of local food producers and she brought them down to Adaptations Food Hub, and our farm. We had everyone from upper management of Kona Hospital all the way down to the kitchen workers and the food buyer come and tour our farm and taste everything and see what we were doing.

I have to give a lot of credit to Greg Christian for being part of the solution for Hawai'i. He's demonstrated, through a number of pilots now, how much stronger the nutrition is of fresh local food. The buy-in from the staff once they start cooking from scratch- they are proud of the dishes they create. They like to hit targets and to see all of the food come back eaten off the plate. Clean plates are always a good sign. They have a fresh salad bar up there. I think they've probably had to shut that down right now for COVID, but before, you could go up and have lunch for less than $10 with our fresh salad bar and a vegan option. So, it was actually becoming a go-to café which you wouldn't really think of in a hospital. It's a great story.

“I have to give a lot of credit to Greg Christian for being part of the solution for Hawai'i. He's demonstrated, through a number of pilots now, how much stronger the nutrition is of fresh local food.”

So how do you think we're going to look back on this time? What are the history books going to say?

My version of history will say that this is when we looked to our communities for strength and resilience because we supported each other. We thrived regionally and recognized how rich we are in aloha, in an island economy, independent of visitor dollars. It doesn't get any better than that.

What can regular members of the community do to support a resilient local food system?

I really encourage people to grow their own food. And if they can't grow their own food, then support the ones who are. You get beans and sweet potatoes and you get nutrient-dense, fresh produce and stronger relationships with plants and the people who nurture them. Join your local CSA, go to your farmer's market.

When I ask farmers that question, ‘plant your own food’ comes before ‘buy local’ every time.

When my customers tell me they're planting a garden, I'm like, great, because that way they'll appreciate all the more what we do for them. But you know, that's a great lifestyle and that's why we're farmers. You know, we're not in it to make gold, we’re in it because we love the lifestyle.

“We thrived regionally and recognized how rich we are in aloha, in an island economy, independent of visitor dollars. It doesn't get any better than that.”

Tane Datta at Adaptations Farm in Kona, by Ronit Faul

Last but not least, who are you inspired by in your local food community? Who are the heroes you’ve seen stepping up during this time?

I’d say the 175 food producers who supply our food hub annually. They're my local food heroes. They range in scale from backyard gardeners to 20-acre lettuce farm to a 1000-acre fruit farm. They're the heroes because they're practicing regenerative agriculture. They're employing people, they're dealing with the adaptations needed to cope with climate change. I mean, they're seat-of-the-pants researchers, they're MacGyvers, constantly having to put out fires and solve problems. Being a farmer's like Whac-A-Mole, you know, you got one thing done and the next thing pops up. You figured out your seed source and then your irrigation line's broke and then the solar panel's not working. It's amazing what farmers can do. So, for me, as Peter Merriman says, my heroes have always been farmers.