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Hawaii News Now: Hawaii manufacturers showcase innovation during tour for policymakers

November 12, 2025

By Annalisa Burgos

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – State lawmakers got an inside look today at how local grants are helping Hawaii manufacturers grow their businesses.

The Chamber of Commerce Hawaii and Hawaii Technology Development Corporation hosted an “Innovation Crawl” to showcase how small businesses are thriving and navigating economic challenges, like tariff uncertainty and inflation.

Pacific Allied Products’ factory in Kapolei boasts a machine that blows about 20,000 plastic beverage bottles every hour, while another fills them with water and labels them.

With the help of a state grant, the 60-year-old plastics manufacturer bought new equipment to meet growing demand and reduce dependence on mainland suppliers.

“One container of our raw materials that saves Hawaii from shipping in like 28 containers of bottled water,” said JB Helekahi, plant manager.

Manufacturers say grants, incentives and tax breaks are needed to make them competitive — especially when you’re in the middle of the Pacific and the state is on the brink of recession.

“The logistics of the shipping coming in raw materials and just the cost of keeping the plant going is kind of our biggest challenges,” Helekahi said.

Defense manufacturer North Star Scientific Corporation, also in Kapolei, says electric bills can reach $20,000 a month.

“The cost of producing things over here, the real estate, electricity and things like that is a challenge,” said VP of technology John Roeder.

The engineering firm designs and makes electronics and radar systems for the military, such as fighter jets and surveillance aircraft.

“We have to be as efficient as possible. so in the manufacturing side, we try to automate things as much as possible just to reduce the amount of labor,” Roeder said.

“We in Hawaii pay 2.5 times the national average for energy usage,” said state senator Glenn Wakai, who chairs the senate committee on energy and intergovernmental affairs.

“The bad side about technology is it sucks a lot of energy. So somehow as a state when we talk about business and economic growth, we have to consider energy costs in the discussion about workforce development, land prices, all of the construction costs, all of that has to come into play with energy.”

“We have the local talent we have the resources here and we want to keep them here and that’s that’s critically important to ensure that we don’t have business going away,” said Chamber of Commerce Hawaii president/CEO Sherry Menor.

The HTDC offers three grant programs — the Hawaii Small Business Innovation Research program (HSBIR), the Accelerator and Small Business Training programs, and the Manufacturing Assistance Program (MAP). Find a link to apply on htdc.org.

“We really need to change away from a service economy to an innovation economy, so providing tax benefits, providing grants to help these guys get through and even more basic that doesn’t cost any money is reduce the regulations that hamper opportunities for growth for these types of industries,” Wakai added.

See the news story here.