Jan 2, 2024

Ke Au Hou, Vol 14

In 2023, it took 5,876 miles of off-roading, wearing out 13 sets of tires and 68 pairs of boots, fielding 429 lbs of ammunition, shouldering 633,955 lbs of deer, washing the floors 914x, watching 321 sunrises, sharpening 2,568 knives and drinking 2,981 cups of coffee. We worked the butchering floor for 95,668 hours, printing 60,895 labels and shipping out 15,478 orders alongside over 7,000 local orders sent directly from our brand new on-island fulfillment center.

Lots of emails were sent, elaborate spreadsheets were made, all while we experienced big wins and lots of small failures alike as we gratefully greeted over 20,000 new customers. Our expanded ʻohana of customers, as well as community partners old and new, helped us turn 11,551 deer into 537,000 lbs of nutrient-dense food.

We are now serving over 7,000 ʻOhana and Snack Members whose monthly commitment to our mission allows us to continue our shared and compounding impact as a management solution for Mauiʻs deer populations and whose combined numbers will soon bring available subscriptions to a close in early 2024.

In keeping with last yearʻs end-of-year review, we wanted to share Maui Nui, by the numbers, 2023:

How to sum up such a year?

Whenever sitting down to write a Ke Au Hou entry, I try to pick a small piece of subject matter that might be used to point to a larger un-writtable whole. But 2023, being what it was, might elude this method altogether, or maybe warrant the use of a handful of pieces with which to point to such a humongous year.

One could invoke a place name (this is A Sense of Place, after all).

Limalau, for example, is an upland gulch along the northern edge of the Lāhainā district. This place name expresses the same meaning as the word laulima; literally, meaning many hands; and figuratively, meaning a group of people working together. Limalau is also the word for a community food patch. And how fitting this embedded place-memory is for the communities in and just north of Lāhainā - for Kaʻanapali, Honokōwai, Nāpili - who became just that - the immediate food hubs for ‘ohana scattered by the fires, who continue to nourish West Maui.

Limalau reminds us of the importance of partnership within our own Holo ‘Ai food-sharing program and helps us to celebrate and greet all the entities that have thrown their hands into the work of sharing this food: the County of Maui, our Ranch Partners at ‘Ulupalakua, Haleakalā, and Kaʻonoʻulu, Elemental Excelerator, Uhiwai o Haleakalā, HFA Logistics, Maui Food Technology Center, Chef Hui and on and on it goes. Limalau reminds us of the power of community to feed.

Or one could employ a plant metaphor.

Like the ʻieʻie, one of our very few Hawaiian vines, whose appearance in our forests - as she winds her aerial roots from leaf-littered floor up and around koa branch and ʻōhiʻa trunk into the canopy - is a sign of good health for our forest communities. In order for her to grow, years and years of forest growth, of over- and under-story, must take place. When an ʻieʻie blooms, her inflorescent crown bright orange in the trees, we know her scaffolding of forest is a wao kele pulling in enough water vapor to feed her. We know her forest is healthy and intact.

For Maui Nui, our indicators of health are beginning to bloom. After 12 years of the slow growth of our company, team, partnerships, on-island capacity, website, offerings, and all the other support structures necessary for turning wild Axis deer into nutrient-dense food, 2023 became the year we were finally able to serve a community of customers big enough to help us eat the amount of venison needed to match population growth. We are so grateful for all of you and so excited to continue to build this ecosystem around you. Balance is more real than ever…and the ʻieʻie blooms!

One could also just let the pictures tell the story.

All the growth that Maui Nui has seen this year, all the successes and learnings too, belong, firstly, to this smaller circle of community, to this ‘ohana and team. Portraits were captured of (almost) everyone this year and so… a GIF to celebrate the many faces (and hands, and backs, and imaginations) that continue to build and shape and carry this vision - of balance within our communities, within our ecosystems and foods systems - forward.

Nui ka mahalo, nui ke aloha, so many thanks, so much love for all the lessons, growth and deep joy we found in community in 2023.

E ola kākou i ke au hou kū laʻelaʻe nō!

A bright and full New Year to us all!