For Ryan Emmons, co-founder and CEO of Hilo-based Waiākea Hawaiian Volcanic Beverages, the company was built upon his passions.
Emmons split his time as a child between the Islands, where his mother grew up and his extended family lived, and California. He attended the University of Southern California, where he was part of a social entrepreneurship program within the Marshall School of Business.
"I was really involved in clean water nonprofits," he told Aloha State Daily. "Waiākea was founded on a lot of my personal passions and core values that are also, I think, reflective of a lot of values here in Hawai‘i."
Waiākea got its start in Hilo in 2012.
The company draws its water from the Mauna Loa aquifer system. Water is filtered down about 13,000 feet from the volcano's summit through volcanic rock, which Emmon says "really enriches it with all these trace minerals. It makes it naturally alkaline."
There are 70 people employed at state-of-the-art bottling facilities in Hilo and Kea‘au, he noted.
In addition to water in bottles of various sizes, sparkling water and boxed water, the company also offers a variety ready-to-drink canned coffees and bags of coffees.
Emmons says Waiākea was founded on a simple idea: the world doesn't need another beverage company or bottled water company.
"But really what it does need is a catalyst for change," Emmons says. "With that, it's really building a brand that reflects values regarding quality, but most importantly, stewardship and community and kind of bringing our community with us along the journey. And from a stewardship standpoint, we wanted to really move the needle in terms of environmental commitments and standards."
Waiākea was the first in Hawai‘i and the U.S. to use 100% post-consumer recycled packaging, which he says has the "lowest environmental footprint" of all packaging types.
"Over the last decade-plus, we've continued to iterate along the way," Emmons says. "Our most recent iteration of that is our OceanPlast line, but we've invested in 'no empty mile' transport management systems, because transport ... in most industries, that's a huge bulk of your environmental footprint, [and also] smokeless roasting for our coffee products."
OceanPlast bottles are made from recycled ocean-bound plastic.
The company also has spent the last few years working to develop "carbon-negative algae-based inks" for its packaging.
And while all that's happening, the company's nonprofit foundation, the Kōkua Initiative, has partnered with more than 175 other nonprofits, community leaders and organizations to impact more than 550,000 people through ‘āina-based conservation projects and programs that aim to help vulnerable populations.
Company growth
Emmons says the focus for growth has been Hawai‘i but the company has expanded into the Mainland over the last several years.
At the start, there was a small team in Hilo, but the company did a pilot in Los Angeles before scaling that through regional trade shows, he explained.
The focus at first was on the "natural channel," Emmons says, but "realized that we were limiting ourselves, and we really could tell the brand had legs. I think a big part of that was when people turn the bottle around and they actually saw everything that we were doing from the sustainability side to that local community impact."
You can now find Waiākea products at thousands of retail locations across the U.S. and there are now more than 90 people companywide.
"It's been a pretty gnarly journey."
Business in Hawai‘i
Emmons is frank when talking about the challenges of running a business in Hawai‘i: It's really hard, he said with a laugh.
"I think any business owner of any size is going to say that operating in Hawai‘i is hard and it feels like there needs to be more done to support local businesses, especially those that are producing and manufacturing things," he continued. "Obviously, I'm biased, but disproportionate amount of jobs are created by the local producers, farmers included. We have a really tourism-dependent import economy, so it just makes sense that we would support more local businesses that are producing things and create a little more self-reliance and resilience for a number of reasons."
Among the challenges, Emmons noted logistics and rising interisland shipping costs. By the end of the year, those interisland shipping rates are anticipated to be 50% higher than 2020. That also affects cost of living.
(ICYMI: The state Public Utilities Commission this summer approved a temporary 18.1% customer rate increase for Young Brothers that went into effect July 1).
What's next?
The company recently launched new latte items and bagged coffees that support Hawai‘i Island farms, and Emmon says he hopes to launch glass bottles later this year made with the highest percentage of recycled material in the industry.
"Typically, most glass bottles that you see out there are mostly virgin material, and if you are focused on cullet glass, then obviously that means you're supporting recycling infrastructure. We need more recycling infrastructure for glass. There's like none."
Waiākea is also a founding partner "in what hopefully will be Hawai‘i's first end-to-end recycling facility," Emmons says.
Additionally, Waiākea recently became a Certified B Corp. The B Impact Assessment, overseen by nonprofit B Lab, evaluates a company's operations in governance, workers, community, environment and customers. You can read more about that here.
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Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
