KAUAI COUNTY, Hawaii (KITV4) -- More than 2,000 acres on Kauai's northeastern coast could soon be home to more than 500 cattle, as planned by the property's new owner, Frank VanderSloot, owner of nutritional supplements company Melaleuca.
Before VanderSloot bought the property for $51.2 million in October 2021, the land was designated for a housing development project.
"If you know Kauai well, traffic is bad and it was just gonna make traffic worse," VanderSloot said. "Out on this farm ground is not where I think you ought to be developing subdivisions."
As the owner of Hawaii's two main meat processing plants, VanderSloot hopes to eventually handle 35 to 40 percent of Hawaii's meat.
"We send 80% of all the cattle, baby calves that are born in Hawaii, we send them to the mainland, and then we import 90% of the meat that we consume in Hawaii," VanderSloot said, pointing out that Hawaii is not equipped with adequate facilities to process its own meat.
VanderSloot's vision is to minimize the percentage of beef that Hawaii sends to the mainland -- but not everyone backs VanderSloot's venture.
"Whether the name is VanderSloot, or Baldwin, or Robinson, isn't it a continuation of the same trend?," longtime Kauai farmer Jerry Ornellas said.
The land VanderSloot bought, Ornellas argued, is better suited for farming than cattle ranching. Ornellas explained that because the agriculture industry is not very profitable, farmers can't afford to purchase more land.
"So this leaves a vacuum, and what happens with a vacuum? It gets filled. So it gets filled by very wealthy people and like I said this trend has been going on for a long time," Ornellas added.
On the other hand, Kauai County Councilmember Mason Chock commended VanderSloot's efforts to make the island more self-reliant.
"If we can process our own and finish our own cattle here, we're going to lessen the cost because every time we put cattle out on a ship and we ship it out it comes back much more expensive, for our own cattle," Chock said.
In addition to the more than 2,000 acres VanderSloot recently purchased, he also owns the historic 102-acre "Valley House" estate in Kealia, which he bought for $14.3 million back in 2016.
'A'ali'i is a reporter with KITV. He was born and raised on the island of Maui and graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor's degree in Journalism.
