Hawaiian papayas are grown in paradise and shipped nearly everywhere from there.
Statistics from Hawaii’s agricultural statistics service indicate that production in 2023 totaled 9.54 million pounds, with production valued at nearly $6.5 million.
Besides shipments to the U.S., top export markets for U.S. papaya exports include Canada, Hong Kong and Japan, USDA numbers indicate.
Eric Weinert, president of the Hawaiian Papaya Industry Association, said in late August that the papayas grown in Hawaii are grown by about 100 growers and packed year-round.
Volume is somewhat lighter in the late summer, but the papaya trees are flowering and should produce good volume for the Christmas holiday, he said.
Most Hawaiian growers are small farmers with about 10 acres of papayas or less, supporting three packing houses, two of which send fruit to Japan and third that sends fruit to North America, Weinert said.
The lighter fruit volume in the summer works out well for growers, since there is considerable competition in the summer months from deciduous fruit, he said.
Hawaiian papaya production goes back for decades, with the solo papaya variety first introduced in the 1960s in the Puna district of the Big Island in Hawaii.
Weinert said Hawaii boasts the best tasting papaya in the world, in part owing to its porous volcanic soils. In contrast, papayas grown in Central America or Brazil on are grown on much denser soils. Hawaii’s soil and ideal growing conditions give its papayas a unique flavor that no other region in the world can duplicate, he said.
Overcoming challenges
The Hawaiian papaya industry went through a challenging time in the 1990s, when the papaya ring spot virus threatened production of the solo papaya variety.
Researchers at the University of Hawaii developed the genetically engineered Rainbow papaya variety, which was released commercially in 1998. The variety features a gene from the virus inserted into the papaya’s DNA, making it resistant to the virus.
The Rainbow has been a good performer for Hawaiian growers, Weinert said. Most growers in Hawaii now grow the orange-flesh Rainbow variety.
Papaya growers in the Caribbean and Brazil all grow red flesh; Weinert said that Hawaiian growers have been able to distinguish their product in the marketplace.
“I think the big challenge, of course, is just the location of Hawaii and the fact that we have to import all of our fertilizer and anything that we're going to use on our crops,” he said. Then, when packers sell the fruit, much of it must be shipped long distances to the U.S., Canada and Japan, he said.
Weinert was instrumental in helping to grow the tropical fruit industry in Hawaii. In the 1990s, growers were looking to expand markets for rambutans, lychee and longan fruit. The growers needed a facility to treat fruit against the fruit fly infestation as a condition for shipping fruit to the U.S.
Because Hawaii produces papaya year-round and other tropical fruit was seasonal, papayas were critical to any effort to finance and build a vapor heat facility required for exports. Hawaii now has three vapor heat facilities to treat tropical fruit, including papayas, for export to the U.S.
In addition to being the president of the Hawaiian Papaya Industry Association, Weinert also runs a business called Hawaii Papaya Direct. The business ships premium Hawaiian papayas by two-day air freight to customers in North America, Weinert said.
“That business continues to grow and we’re up 60% year over year,” he said in late August. “I think people really, really love Hawaii papaya,” he said. “Many of our customers have a Hawaii connection, having lived here or have relatives from here. They first tasted papayas here and they love it.”
Many consumers love papayas for their health benefits, and the service now has several hundred subscribers receiving regular shipments, he said.
The fruit gets picked on a Sunday, packed on a Monday, shipped on a Tuesday and may get to consumers’ homes by Thursday.
“It's very, very hard to find that kind of fresh picked Hawaii papaya any other way, and I think people are willing to pay for that,” he said.