Kona coffee proving popular - with shoplifters

News admin June 18, 2026 0 Comments

Kona coffee proving popular — with shoplifters

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – When you go to the store, you’re no doubt seeing more items that are locked behind plexiglass.

Add bags of Kona coffee to that list.

The coffee grown on the Kona slopes of Hawaii Island is prized for its bold yet smooth taste.

“I’m a part-time worker at a coffee company. And if they don’t lock it up, they have a problem,” said Mitchell Kimura.

Kimura said the problem has worsened in recent years as the price of Kona coffee has gone up.

“Coffee was maybe ten dollars a bag, and it wasn’t that expensive, and it wasn’t gotten stolen then. But now that it’s at least 20 dollars or sometimes 30 dollars, it regularly gets taken from stores,” he said.

“The merchants kind of leave it out there to entice people in, or to run sales or that sort of thing, and leave it unprotected,” said retired Honolulu deputy police chief John McCarthy. “Well, the crooks take advantage of this vulnerability.”

More retailers have been putting the valuable bags of Kona coffee beans and grounds in locked plexiglass cases — which often adds more to the cost.

“Is the option to put it behind glass? Is it to have more staff? Is it to invest in more technology? All of those things cost money, and the retail community already works on a very, very thin margin,” said Dave Erdman, the interim president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii.

The experts say people aren’t stealing the bags of Kona coffee for themselves.

“The motivator is always the next sale,” said McCarthy. “They’re taking it off the shelves completely free, so anything they sell it for is a profit.”

“That bag goes to some other middleman and it goes to another person or another organization and it gets put on a shelf in a bar, it gets put in some other non-retail location,” said Erdman.

Other items, including SPAM, macadamia nuts and expensive shampoos, have gone through this cycle. And the consequences for theft aren’t stopping the thieves. Stealing less than $750 worth of merchandise is only a misdemeanor.

“I’ve actually been in stores where I’ve seen guys walk in and start loading it up,” said McCarthy. “The clerk is yelling at them. You know they’re going to steal it. And I talk to the clerk, I yell at the kid, and he goes, what are you going to do to me? The police aren’t going to arrest me. The store’s not going to prosecute me.”

So buyer beware, if that bag of Kona coffee is a lot less expensive than it should be.

“If there is cheap coffee being sold by people you don’t know, maybe you should not buy it because maybe it’s taken from somewhere,” said Kimura. “And if you buy it, you’re just contributing to this perennial problem.”