Famous for local staples like soda crackers, Creem crackers, shortbread macadamia nut cookies and candy bead cookies, Diamond Bakery celebrated its 104th birthday this year.
The business — named after the iconic Diamond Head landmark — was founded in 1921 by Japanese immigrants Kikutaro Hiruya, Natsu Muramoto and Hidegoro Murai. The three had a shared vision to create the perfect Hawaiian-made cracker.
In 1926, with the addition of experienced baker Sam Dunphy to oversee production, the bakery soon became Hawaiʻi’s cracker specialist, with well-known products like graham crackers and Hawaiian soda crackers.
Fast-forward nearly 100 years: The bakery remains committed to excellence, has expanded its product lines, and still offers some the same, timeless products.
Aloha State Daily recently got an exclusive tour of the bakery — complete with fun facts and info from Jackie Murai-Pederson, director of development and strategic initiatives — watching some of the confections being made, and even sampling cookies and crackers hot off the assembly line.
Murai-Pederson took us through the different factory rooms, and explained what was going on in each.
Jackie Murai-Pederson (JMP): The flour goes into this big bag; it sucks it up and takes it over to the huge silo that’s outside. The silo has been there since we originally started this place; it’s basically what stores all the flour. The flour then goes down into that pipe, and they use the flour in all of the crackers and biscuits.
JMP: Everything moves through the tunnel ovens. There are two lines — one is for crackers, and the other is for cookies and biscuits. The way they’re made is a little bit different.
JMP: The cracker line starts on this end. The dough goes up the line; they add more flour and it thins out even more until it gets to this evenly thinned-out layer. You can see the stamper moving; it makes the even cuts. This is basically cutting of all the excess [dough] and making sure the excess goes all the way back into the dough so it’s not wasted. We’re using as much of the ingredients as possible.
It’ll go through this whole tunnel oven and go all the way to the end. It’ll turn into the soda crackers, or whatever cracker is on this line that day.
This oven has been here from the beginning; it’s old, but trusty and sturdy. They have these windows, and they (the workers) will peek in and check and make sure that it’s (the crackers are) consistent.
JMP: The flavor is lighter and as it (the cookies) cool down, the flavor starts to concentrate. They (the workers) will pull random cookies (off the line) for quality control.
JMP: The cookies will go through a metal detector. Not that there’s any metals, but they’re strict about quality control. They want to make sure that nothing is going astray. They put it all through the metal detectors before they bag them.
Once they go through the detectors, they’re put into trays and the aunties are sitting there, packaging them.
JMP: There’s a slightly different process (for the animal crackers). While the cookies and biscuits go through that, the animal crackers get carted over here (to this machine). It goes up — like a ladder — and goes all the way to the top and funnels back down. There is a counter that weighs it out per pack. The aunties package them.
JMP: They have the products on these pallets. They’re wrapped all nice and tight so they’re ready to ship.
Diamond Bakery serves not just all of Hawaiʻi, but also California and different states. They have Diamond Bakery crackers and cookies in certain Costcos and Sam’s Clubs on the Mainland, as well. Some of these are made specifically for those places, and they get shipped out.
Customers can choose from a full selection of snacks in Diamond Bakery’s factory store (limited visitor parking and street parking is available at the store).
The business currently has a red box special, in which customers can mix and match up to 18 Hawaiian shortbread cookies for $9.99.
Diamond Bakery’s confections can also be found in retailers like Longs Drugs, Foodland, Tamura Super Market, 7-Eleven Hawaiʻi, Don Quijote, Times Supermarket and others.
CONTACT
Diamond Bakery Hawaiʻi
756 Moowaa St., Honolulu
diamondbakery.com
Instagram: @diamondbakeryhawaii
Open 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays
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Kelli Shiroma Braiotta can be reached at kelli@alohastatedaily.com.
