Local pork has mostly disappeared from plates across Hawaiʻi following decades of steady decline.

Somewhere between 100 and 200 local pigs are slaughtered in the islands every month. The approximately 10-20 tons of meat they produce accounts for about 0.4% of all the pork eaten in the state.

Hawai‘i’s annual demand is anticipated to surpass 100 million pounds by 2030, according to a state analysis, and the state education department has been mandated to increase the amount of local food in school meals.

The state has ponied up $4 million to build a pig-centered slaughterhouse in Kunia on Oʻahu, as part of its bid to boost local food production and meet self-sufficiency goals.

Lawmakers had opposed funding the project, claiming it should be industry-driven, but the state’s typically small piggeries said they lacked the capital.

The number of hogs and pigs in Hawaiʻi dropped to 6,514 in 2023 from 28,570 in 1992 due to increased efficiencies on the U.S. mainland and the high cost of production in the islands.

The precipitous decline in commercial pig slaughter has helped feed the growth of an informal gray market for local swine, in which residents purchase live pigs before they’re typically killed on-farm and processed by the customer.

An estimated 13,600 pigs were slaughtered for the gray market in 2023, according to a May report from the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.

The Agribusiness Development Corp. is edging closer to construction of the slaughterhouse in Kunia, where it is appraising land for the build. It has been in the pipeline for at least two years, initially slated to sit next to Oʻahu’s largest slaughterhouse, in Kalaeloa.

Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, who has championed agricultural for his constituency in Wahiawā, is a strong supporter of building the slaughterhouse. He has been working with the ADC to fund and construct centralized kitchen facilities for the Department of Education at Whitmore Village.

In recent months, Dela Cruz, state officials and other lawmakers visited slaughterhouses on the Big Island and Colorado for inspiration.

The facility is part of a wider push to supply more locally produced food to the Department of Education, which has been mandated to increase the proportion of local food in school meals to 30% by 2030. It purchased less than 5% of its food from local sources last year, counting bottled water.

“There should be cold storage as well so that they can process their hogs and they can sell to DOE,” Dela Cruz said recently at the Hawaiʻi Food Systems Summit. “And whatever DOE doesn’t buy, they can sell to local retailers, hotels or restaurants.” 

The ADC is also scoping out land in central Wahiawā, having commissioned the University of Hawaiʻi Community Design Center to draw up plans to build an egg-cracking facility on Kilani Avenue. The DOE is the corporation’s target customer.

“Data Dive” is supported in part by the Will J. Reid Foundation. “Hawai‘i Grown” is funded in part by grants from the Stupski Foundation, Ulupono Fund at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.