Dole Food Company Hawaii plans to leave coffee farming on Oahu. In a notice received by Hawaii's labor department on 5 October 2026, the company said its coffee farm at Waialua is listed for sale and that about nine jobs tied to it will end on or about 30 November 2026.
The notice is a WARN filing, the advance warning an employer gives the state before certain closures and layoffs. Hawaii News Now reported it on 13 October and Daily Coffee News on 16 October.
What does the notice say?
The state's WARN notice says the action is a planned permanent partial closure, or divestiture, limited to the coffee farm on Kealohanui Street in Waialua. It says the farm is for sale and that the sale will eliminate the company's positions there. By the notice's count, the nine jobs are three lead operators, three senior agricultural workers, two equipment operators and one mechanical maintenance operator. None of the workers is represented by a union, the notice says. The contact it names is Loraine Agcaoili, the company's HR manager.
Dole's pineapple farm and visitor center are not affected, according to Hawaii News Now, which also reported that employees were told they would get details on final wages, benefits and any openings in the company. Neither the notice nor the coverage names a buyer.
What is on the farm?
A CBRE sales listing titled "Dole Lands Coffee Parcels", as read on 18 October 2026, says the property covers 207.56 acres at Waialua, about 154 of them planted in Kona typica. The listing says most of the trees went in around 1996, that they are drip irrigated, and that about 2 acres are Mokka and 1.5 acres are Blue Mountain, two other arabica varieties.
The same listing puts the yield at about 2,500 pounds of coffee cherry per acre each year, and says green coffee comes to roughly 20% of the cherry weight. It says the crop is kept up only to hold the trees in good condition for a sale, and that the land was available from August 2025. It gives no price.
Worked through on the listing's own figures, rather than on any number Dole or CBRE published, that is about 500 pounds of green coffee per acre, or roughly 77,000 pounds a year across 154 acres. At 60 kilograms to a bag, that comes to a little under 600 bags.
Has Dole sold other land at Waialua?
It has. In June 2026, Lonohana Estate Chocolate bought 60 acres of growing cacao at Waialua Estate from Dole, part of a 151-acre parcel the company had put up for sale, Hawaiʻi Public Radio reported on 6 July. Seneca Klassen, Lonohana's chief executive, told the station the aim was to keep the orchards in cacao. The station said that orchard is about 20% of the land used for cacao in Hawaii, the only state where the crop is grown commercially.
How big is coffee in Hawaii?
Hawaii's coffee crop was worth $48 million in 2023, according to figures cited by Hawaiʻi Public Radio in the same July report, against $31 million for macadamia nuts. The Waialua notice landed in the same month that the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa was named to lead a new federal research program for the crop, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Coffee and Cacao, announced by the State Department on 15 October.
What are the figures?
- About 9 jobs ending on or about 30 November 2026, according to the WARN notice received by Hawaii's labor department on 5 October 2026.
- 207.56 acres in total, about 154 planted in coffee, according to the CBRE listing as read on 18 October 2026.
- About 2,500 pounds of cherry per acre per year, according to the same CBRE listing as read on 18 October 2026.
- 60 acres of Dole's cacao sold to Lonohana Estate Chocolate in June 2026, according to Hawaiʻi Public Radio on 6 July 2026.
- Coffee worth $48 million in Hawaii in 2023, according to figures cited by Hawaiʻi Public Radio on 6 July 2026.
Photograph: Adriel Gonzalez, Unsplash, of a coffee plant listed at Hacienda Muñoz, San Lorenzo. It is not the Waialua farm.
