Honolulu Weekly

Foodland Farms in ‘Aina Haina / Don’t expect a Foodland version of Whole Foods at the new Foodland Farms in ‘Aina Haina, which opened two weeks ago. For the most part, this is still a traditional supermarket–there’s the floor-to-ceiling case of cigarettes, a liquor aisle and aisles of high-fructose corn syrup (soda, chips and candy–the stuff that’s explicitly banned in a natural-foods store). And while the meat, seafood, bakery and deli counters are new to the ‘Aina Haina location, Foodland Farms isn’t fundamentally different from other Foodlands that have meat and deli counters, as well as R. Field Wine Company installations, which offer food finery such as cheeses, pates and charcuterie.

So is Foodland Farms just a name change, a marketing move to capitalize on our current foodie obsession with farmers markets and everything “farm-to-table”?

“‘Farms represents fresh–fresh from the farm, fresh-picked,” says Sheryl Toda, director of corporate communications of Foodland Super Market, Ltd., on how the name came to be. “We also wanted to showcase our local products from our local farmers and our ranchers. ‘Farms’ represented…that we were working with a lot of the farmers and getting a lot of the products directly from their farms.”

In other words, yes and no: “Foodland Farms” is definitely a branding move, but it’s not just lip-service. While Foodland has been one of the better supermarkets for locally grown (i.e. Foodland is the only supermarket to offer Hawaiian Red Veal and, along with Whole Foods, is the only market to offer local milk), Foodland Farms offers additional local items not found in other Foodlands, like Twin Bridge Farms’ Waialua potatoes, Wailea Ag Group fresh hearts of palm, Surfing Goat Dairy fresh chevre and Naked Cow Dairy butter.

“[There are] some new local produce items in this store that perhaps the farm does not have enough to supply all of our 31 stores, but can supply one store,” says Toda.

And then there are the gourmet touches: a tossed-to-order salad bar, a gelato bar that also offers Bubbies mochi ice cream sold by the piece (somehow, these always taste better than the boxed ones sold in the ice cream aisle) and a beverage bar that includes a rich hot chocolate mixed in a contraption that resembles a fancy slushy machine. Even the R. Fields in Foodland Farms offers a little more–fresh mozzarella pulled in-house daily and a freezer full of upscale goodies, like lobes of foie gras you can buy to celebrate the deferment of the foie gras ban.

There’s also a small aisle that might as well be labeled the “hippie” aisle–stocked with soy milk, organic baby food and Dr. Bronner’s castile soap, among other brands and products associated with that lifestyle. And while the comparisons to Whole Foods are obvious (the gelato bar, the gourmet cheese case, the extensive bakery), Foodland Farms is decidedly not a natural foods store.

“Foodland Farms offers customers the best of Foodland as well as a lot of more gourmet items,” says Toda. “[Customers] can find their usual favorites like Oreo cookies, soda, Coke and also find fresh mozzarella cheese, 150 cheeses, as well scratch-made bread.”

In this aspect, it’s unique. Foodland Farms is probably the only market on the island where you can buy Oreos (not Newman O’s) and local milk to dunk them in, red hot dogs and all-butter puff pastry to encase them, a $1.99 loaf of white bread and hot capicolla, saimin and local haricot verts, Franzia wine-in-a-box and black truffled cheese, chicken feet and veal demi glace.

It’s bit of a scavenger hunt to find them all. The all-butter puff pastry is at the opposite end of the store from the Pillsbury Puff Pastry, Surfing Goat Dairy cheese is separate from the gourmet cheese case, which is halfway across the store from the packaged cheddar and mozzarella, blue corn tortilla chips are in a different aisle from the Lay’s and Tostitos. It appears Foodland deliberately separates the gourmet and “natural foods” from the Coke and the Kraft foods, whether to discourage price comparisons or to avoid a run-in between a dehydrated veggie-chip consumer and a Doritos eater. If anything, Foodland Farms makes for a fascinating marketing or social psychology study.

This isn’t Foodland’s first marketing branch-out. The Foodland umbrella also includes Sack ‘n’ Save (the two Oahu stores are in Salt Lake and Nanakuli) and this is the second Foodland Farms (the first opened in Mauna Lani on the Big Island).

Foodland was the first modern supermarket to open here and is now Hawaii’s largest locally owned and operated grocery retailer. Consequently, Foodland may have the best touch on the pulse of local tastes. As such, with the introduction of Whole Foods in Kahala and a growing public sentiment i toward the need at least to feel connected with farms –even as we move farther and further from the agrarian lifestyle– Foodland Farms seems to be the perfect hybrid of capitalizing on the movement toward “natural” and “gourmet” and “farm-fresh” foods without ostracizing the local taste for kamaboko, Spam and Ted’s chocolate haupia cream pie.