It starts with meticulous prep work which begins the day before: First, a touch of sea salt dolled over slabs of raw meat, which are next layered in ti and banana leaves. Then comes burlap and cloth, followed by plastic coverings.
There’s also the 900-degree cook — that alone, is a 12-hour event. And in addition, there’s time spent gathering resources, prepping the underground pit and lighting the fire — another three to four hours — followed by cooling and a painstaking packaging process.
Imu cooking isn’t simple nor is it quick. And yet Terri Napeahi cooks using the ancient Hawaiian process several times each week. For Napeahi, owner of the Hawaii Island-based Papa Mu Native Hawaiian LLC, and a staunch proponent of what she calls authentic, imu-cooked Kalua foods, the work is well worth it.
“I’m sort of trailblazing this in a way,” Napeahi said during a breezy tour of her leased Mountain View property last month. “(I’m) taking the cracks, for what comes with this responsibility of, a product that is authentic. Authenticity is important to me.”
Papa Mu is a young but growing startup company which specializes in authentically prepared Hawaiian foods, particularly meats cooked in an imu.
A source who requested anonymity citing U.S. Department of Agriculture media policies said that Napeahi is the sole person in the state to maintain a federal grant of inspection for imu cooking which allows her to exclusively sell her products as “imu-cooked” in stores.
Maintaining the grant of inspection isn’t easy — Napeahi follows stringent federal regulations which she said include monthly surface testing, temperature checks, maintaining a pathogen-free environment and having a USDA inspector on-site each time she processes.
“There are very strict regulations when you’re a USDA federal plant,” she said. “There is so much more involved (than just state certification). It’s not easy. And you have to run a business and that, I think deters people, too. Running a business isn’t easy.”
Napeahi’s maintained her grant of inspection for more than a year. Doing so allows her to sell at 19 sites islandwide which include local grocery chains such as KTA Super Stores, Sack and Save and Foodland.
KTA Owner Barry Taniguchi told the Tribune-Herald the grocery chain enjoys working with local businesses. Taniguchi said “fresh and local” is a mission KTA has supported “for many, many years.”
“We do want to support local businesses and we try to give them as much exposure as they can,” he said. “We want local companies to succeed.”
Napeahi employs a handful of part-time employees and gets help from family members when needed. Her product line includes pork, chicken and turkey.
She’s also working to achieve USDA certification for her smoked products.
Napeahi said she’s no stranger to imu cooking. She was raised in Keaukaha Hawaiian Homes, she said, and grew up watching her dad cook in the imu constantly — the family would often cater for large-scale luaus.
Cooking for a business isn’t quite the same as cooking for family. Napeahi said business was slow at first and at times, her products are a tough sell. Her meats cost about twice as much than most competition which is oven-liquid smoked and requires less labor.
Napeahi said sales are slowly picking up and she’s negotiating with a distribution company which would allow her to expand even more. Eventually she’d like to export nationwide and around the world.
“It’s going to take me a while for people to appreciate the value of authenticity,” she said.
“But … it’s exciting for me to be in this position — the only Hawaiian in this industry right now and I think it’s great to be able to represent a whole culture in an economic opportunity like this.”
Email Kirsten Johnson at
kjohnson@hawaiitribune
-herald.com.
