How Poi Is Made

Poi starts the same way everywhere: kalo (taro) is cooked, then turned into a paste. What separates one poi from another isn't the crop — it's what happens to it after it's cooked, and Hawaiʻi has always made room for two very different answers to that question.

Two methods, one crop

Hand-pounded poi (kuʻi ʻai) is made with a pōhaku kuʻi ʻai — a carved stone pounder — worked against a papa kuʻi ʻai, a wooden board built for the purpose. Cooked kalo is struck and folded over on itself, again and again, with only enough water added to keep it from sticking to the stone. Poi makers who still work this way describe the result as thick and elastic — dense enough to cling to a finger rather than run off it.

Milled poi — the method behind most poi sold in stores today — runs cooked kalo through a mechanical grinder instead. Milling needs more added water to keep the machinery from clogging, which produces a smoother, thinner poi than the hand-pounded version. Both are real poi, made from the same crop; the method is the difference.

A mill that existed, and what happened to it

For 75 years, Hilo had its own commercial poi mill. Puʻueo Poi was founded by Leslie Chang in the 1940s, first in Waipiʻo Valley, then relocated to Kekuanaoa Street in Hilo in 1963 after flood and tidal-wave damage. At its busiest, at the original site, it milled 5,000 to 6,000 pounds of poi a week. By its later years under Gilbert Chang — who ran it for 27 years — that had settled to 1,000 to 1,500 pounds, three days a week. It sold through KTA Super Stores and Sack N Save, and also made kūlolo, lūʻau leaf, and lau lau.

Puʻueo Poi closed on August 11, 2017. Chang, then 75, tried to sell the business, found no buyer, and retired instead — it was still selling through both retailers on its last day.

Hawaiʻi Island hasn't had a commercial poi mill since. The poi on its grocery shelves today comes from Oʻahu (HPC Foods, sold as Taro Brand) and Kauaʻi (Hanalei Poi Company). Small-scale, hand-pounded poi is still made on the island directly from local kalo — Loeffler Farms sells Waipiʻo-grown poi at Market @ The Mill in Hilo, and it shows up regularly at the Volcano Farmers Market too.

What Hawaiʻi's food code actually says about it

Hawaiʻi treats hand-pounded poi differently from every other processed food, milled poi included. Under the state's food safety code, a producer making only hand-pounded poi — defined specifically as taro pulverized by hand with a stone implement on a wooden board — is exempt from the certified food-processing establishment and permit that other food producers, including milled-poi makers, are required to have. Three conditions still apply either way: a food safety certification, a handwashing station used during preparation, and standard food labeling. Milled poi doesn't qualify for the exemption, since it isn't made by hand — a mechanized operation needs the standard Department of Health food establishment permit and an inspected, code-built facility.

It's a real legal distinction, not just a difference in technique, and at least one of Hawaiʻi's oldest small poi makers has leaned into it directly. Oʻahu's Waiāhole Poi Factory, which has milled taro since 1971, stopped mechanical production entirely and now makes everything by hand — close to 200 pounds of hand-pounded poi a week, pounded stone-to-board by the owner's sons.

Where poi actually comes from today

Two brands supply most of the poi sold in Hawaiʻi's grocery stores: HPC Foods (Taro Brand), based in Waipahu on Oʻahu and the largest poi manufacturer in the state, and Hanalei Poi Company, founded in 1999 by two Kauaʻi taro farmers. Both mill their poi rather than hand-pound it. Outside those two, hand-pounded poi is mostly a small-batch, direct product — sold at a factory counter, a farmers market, or by a grower who also mills a portion of their own harvest — rather than something found on a supermarket shelf.

If you're already growing kalo yourself, see Hand-Pounded Poi: A Starter Checklist for what it actually takes to make your first batch.

Sources: Puʻueo Poi bids aloha, West Hawaii Today, 2017; Hand-Pounded vs. Milled Poi Explained, Waiāhole Poi Factory; Hawaii Administrative Rules §11-50-3; further sourcing in Further Reading.