Rearview: Mirror: Sweet memories of Dole’s pineapple juice fountains
Many of my columns start with a reader question or comment about things they remember from long ago, such as this one from Christopher Haig. “I remember visiting the Dole Cannery many years ago, when I was about 10 years old. The article discusses the story of Dole Cannery, which once had free pineapple juice dispensers in its baggage claim area at Honolulu Airport. The dispensers were used as a promotional tool for Dole, but were often discarded due to litter issues. The article also mentions the demise of the old soda fountain spigots for free juice at Dole cannery. Dole came to Hawaii in 1899 with the idea of canning pineapple and sought a device to transfer the juice from a can to a can, which he developed using the beer can opener. The first product to carry the Dole name was pineapple juice.
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Many of my columns start with a reader question or comment about things they remember from long ago, such as this one from Christopher Haig. “I remember visiting the Dole Cannery many years ago, when I was about 10 years old. Read more
Many of my columns start with a reader question or comment about things they remember from long ago, such as this one from Christopher Haig. “I remember visiting the Dole Cannery many years ago, when I was about 10 years old.
“I was absolutely amazed that, in our tour, there was the usual wall-mounted, steel water fountain. When we bent over to get a drink, there was a bubbling stream of pure fresh pineapple juice!
“We thought this was so amazing to enjoy a fresh sweet fruit drink from the normally tasteless water fountains found in schools and public buildings!”
That reminded me that Dole used to have free pineapple juice dispensers in the baggage claim area at Honolulu Airport. Small Dixie cups were provided to fill with that refreshing drink for all who wanted it.
I thought it was a great promotional tool for Dole, but a representative said the cups often turned into litter and were a problem.
Honolulu Advertiser columnist Bob Krauss wrote about free pineapple juice in 1987. “Another Hawaiian institution bit the dust yesterday when the old soda fountain spigots for free pineapple juice at Dole Cannery were turned off for the last time at 3 p.m.”
Krauss noted they had been dispensing free pineapple juice to all comers since cannery tours began in the early 1950s. “But now the tradition is going the way of the free juice that was once served at the airport and on interisland flights.”
Hawaii pineapple canners once employed tens of thousands of people, and we can still find those sweet pineapple stories in our rearview mirror.
James Dole came to Hawaii in 1899 with the idea of canning pineapple. He was 22 years old and had saved $16,000. The Hawaii economy at the time was driven by a single product: sugar.
Shipping pineapple long distances was problematic. After a few weeks, it rotted and was a mess. Canning allowed agricultural products to maintain most of their quality, Dole noted. His goal was to have pineapple sold in every grocery store in America, and in that regard, he was largely successful.
James Dole was a cousin of Sanford Dole, who was a leader of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893. He advised James not to use the family name because it was associated with religion and politics.
Instead, James Dole called his venture the Hawaiian Pineapple Co. During the Great Depression, pineapple sales in general fell. Dole thought juice sales could offset the decline in fruit sales if there was “a quick and efficient way to get pineapple juice out of a can.”
He turned to the American Can Co. to develop such a device. “Within six months of my request, they answered, in the form of what is now known as the beer can opener (this was two years before canned beer hit the market),” Dole said.
The can opener was transformative, and the first product to carry the Dole name was pineapple juice.
Arnold Lum said when he turned 15, his first summer job was to run the juice blender at the California Packing Corp., commonly referred to as CPC.
“I was interviewed by Mr. Sutherland. He asked if I had taken chemistry. I had, and he assigned me to the pineapple juice essence blender.
“Mr. Sutherland intimated that I would have an easy job because I didn’t have to work one of the line positions like running the Ginaca machine (which cored pineapples and was ‘dangerous’). The blender added pineapple juice back into the cans. All I had to do was adjust the controls.
“What Mr. Sutherland didn’t tell me was that the controls were located on a platform just below CPC’s corrugated tin roof. The temperature was 105 degrees because hot air rises, and the humidity was fierce.
“The job was easy enough, so I brought paperback books to read. I occasionally glanced at the controls.
“One day, I brought a James Bond novel. I became so engrossed that I neglected to monitor the blender.
“I heard, over the noise emanating from below, the clomp-clomping of work boots. Mr. Sutherland was climbing the stairs two steps at a time, heading to the control panel.
“He never scolded me,” Lum concluded, “just adjusted the controls. And he didn’t confiscate my James Bond novel.”
Jackie Lee Stevens said, “I had a brother-in-law, Chan Ching, that worked for the Maul Pineapple Co. What a great man and friend.
“For several years, he would send my wife and I a case of pineapple syrup. We’d put it on pancakes, waffles and ice cream. Our daughter mixed it with 7UP soda.
“It was such a special treat, but we could never find it in stores.”
Kevin Connelly was a pilot for Hawaiian Airlines in the early 1980s. “Interisland cabin service in the morning was coffee, and later in the day included water and pineapple juice. This was the practice for many years before I was hired.
“Every 3 or 4 years, an aircraft would be removed from service for a heavy check, where it was often found that spilled acidic pineapple juice had caused corrosion.
“This corrosion was superficial and cosmetic but did require special attention to complete the maintenance. Because of this, the airline switched to POG (Passion Orange Guava juice).”
Former Aloha Airlines flight attendant Patti Smart had an in-flight problem with pineapple juice.
“A few months after I was hired in January 1957, and still on probation, I was in the cabin serving pineapple juice. A woman’s elbow knocked the tray I was holding and I quickly pulled it away from her and into my lap. I was completely soaked.
“Pineapple juice is sticky and smelly, so I had to wash the skirt right away. I didn’t have a replacement uniform, but did have a pair of striped capris. They were rainbow colored and didn’t look like our official wool skirts at all.
“I washed the skirt, but had no way to dry it. The DC-3s flew at low altitudes and were not pressurized. The co-pilot opened one of the cockpit windows slightly — maybe half an inch — and I held the skirt up to it. It helped but not enough, so he lowered the window all the way.
“Quite a breeze came in and I thought it would dry, when all of a sudden it flew out of my hands and out the window! That was the last I saw of my skirt.
“Our pilot radioed dispatch to call my mom and asked her to bring me a replacement skirt to the airport. All the planes in the Pacific used the same frequency, and all the crews now knew I had lost my skirt out the plane’s window!
“The passengers took up a collection to buy me a new skirt. They knew I was a newbie and wasn’t paid a lot, so they paid for my skirt. It think it might have been $35.
“Mom was dismayed. ‘I dropped her off this morning fully clothed,’ she told the dispatcher. ‘Now she has no skirt!’ Mom was very angry. She had to stop cooking and drive to the airport.
“When she arrived, she gave me the new skirt. ‘What happened?!’
“Tell you tomorrow, mom. Pick me up in the morning. I gotta go to Hilo. It was an overnighter.”
Patti was sure she would be terminated. “A few days later, the president, Rudy Tongg, called me into his office. He wasn’t going to fire me, he said. He just wanted to know the full story.
“Apparently his Honolulu Rotary club heard about my flying skirt and wanted to know the the full story at their next meeting.
“Bob Krauss wrote about it in his Honolulu Advertiser column, so everybody in town knew I lost my skirt out the airplane window.”
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at [email protected] or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.