We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Anuhea Sills a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Anuhea, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

My business started after a beef jerky debate between myself and my husband (Brian). He insisted that a thin chip style was best and I was addamant that the old style, a thicker, more chewy cut was better. We debated it so heavily yet light heartedly that I started looking for a new dehydrator so we could make our own respective styles. Through the power of the internet, a freeze dryer popped up as an option for a way to preserve meat. What really caught my attention though, was the ability to preserve nearly any type of food including ice cream. After weeks of research and watching videos about freeze drying I planted the seed that I thought we should get a freeze dryer. Brian quickly shot the idea down and I didn’t blame him. They are expensive and if I only wanted it to make treats for ourselves and our immediate family then it didn’t make sense financially. After months of pining over a freeze dryer, we were preparing to take a few trips. One for Brians job and an actual vacation for just the two of us. Then Covid hit, travel got shut down and I knew it was my chance! I insisted that I was going to use my half of the vacation money to get a freeze dryer. Brian was still understandably hesitant but I’m stubborn and followed my gut feeling which was that it would all work out. Two months later I had a freeze dryer and started experimenting with almost any food item I could get my hands on then selling it to our family and friends to fund more experiments. Thats how one of my most popular items was created. The Kimchi Cucumber Chip. I was eating a Poke bowl when I contemplated freeze drying the entire thing. Somehow only the Kimchi Cucumber made it to testing and in chip form rather than traditional chunks. When we introduced our candies to our friends and family, they loved it but when we started to offer the Kimchi Cucumber Chips word started spreading quickly and before I knew it, the demand for my treats was so overwhelming that I had to quit my two restaurant jobs to manage my “side gig” that was now much more than a weekend play thing. Over time Mahina Mea grew and started being recognized in our community and surrounding communities. Four years later, we still haven’t settled the debate of the jerky but we did just purchase a dehydrator as we opened a brick and mortar location on 4/22/24 so maybe we will set out on a new adventure in food innovation.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have a background in bartending and my husband has been a chef for many years at one of the best restaurants on the Kohala coast of Hawaii. We both draw on the creativity of melding ingredients to create unique flavors for unexpected snacks. Some things that we offer not typical in the freeze drying community are our original item, the Kimchi Cucumber Chips, different flavored haupias (Hawaiian coconut custard), Hawaiian inspired snacks coated in a Lihing Mui (Chinese pickled and dried plum) powder. We love to blend unconventional flavors as well as flavors that are common in Hawaii but may be less known to the rest of the world.

Mahina Mea was started during the Covid-19 pandemic so we had to get creative with marketing and getting our goods noticed. We could carry around bags of candy and gift them to family, friends and strangers whose day we just wanted to add some joy to. This little act helped word spread about us quickly as everyone started sharing about us on social media. We still often carry around bags of our most common treats and sometimes a new product we are working on to give away. Offering things that aren’t commonly found in grocery stores has a fun factor to it and it definitely makes us memorable. We are proud of the community and following that we have built over the last 4 years and are excited to see where our new storefront will lead us on our business adventure.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

On the business side with my fellow Freeze Drying community – I’m not afraid of hard work! I’m not afraid of small fails and I know theres always room for growth. I look forward to collaborating and exchanging knowledge with likeminded entrepreneurs. If McDonalds and Burger King have been around for years and are both very successful, then there is room for more than one business like mine in my community so I choose to see other companies like mine as allies rather than competition. There are nearly 200K people on the Island of Hawaii where Mahina Mea based and we couldn’t possibly accomodate every person wanting freeze dried goods but collectively as a freeze drying community, we might.

On the Sales side with customers- I’m not afraid of hard work. I will go the extra mile to make sure the quality of Mahina Mea goods are top tier. I’m passionate about what I do and the product I put out into the community and it shows. And it brings people back. Holding myself and my company accountable when things aren’t as good as they should be also goes a long way in building a reliable reputation for a company that people want to continuously support.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I hade no background in business when I started my company and I knew copyright and trademark laws existed but had no clue what exactly that meant. I would put trademarked names of candies on my labels and that turned out to be a big problem. I was emailed a cease and desist by a large candy company and it terrified me. I thought they were going to sue me for so much money that my potential great grand children would be paying off the debt.

After taking the item off my menu and agreeing to not use the name anymore no further action was taken on their part but I was still shaken by the experience. I had to take a step back and reevaluate what I was doing with my business. I almost quit. I thought “I can’t have this happen with every other large candy company that I use” and I didn’t know how I was going to continue offering some of more popular, well known candies in my inventory.

Thankfully, I have some amazing friends who helped me come up with product names that do not infringe on trademarks and I didn’t quit! Re-doing hundreds of labels was not fun but it was a valuable lesson learned and it shifted my thinking as well as approach to how I label my goods.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mahinamea.com
• Instagram: @mahina.mea
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/mahinamea