HONOLULU (KHON2) – A sweet new deal is taking flight in Hawaii. A new partnership with Amazon is sending Hawaii-grown fruit to the mainland faster.

On Wednesday, July 16, Amazon announced that Maui Gold pineapples will fly with Amazon Air Cargo.

State Sen. Glenn Wakai helped broker the deal between the two, leading to the launch of a direct air cargo route from Hawaii to California.

“This Amazon deal has two huge benefits for the state. The first is timeliness. In the past, if you were to get a pineapple to get somehow to the East Coast, to a wholesaler there, it would take almost two days, almost 48 hours to get there. With Amazon, it’s 12 hours,” Wakai said.

This partnership is a prime example of how Amazon Air Cargo connects producers and markets to support regional agriculture and maintain freshness standards.

“And the other huge benefit is the cost savings. I’m told there’s a 60% savings on cargo rates. So those were the two biggest impediments to getting Hawai’i products to the mainland. Amazon has taken away those two impediments,” he added.

More than 5,000 Maui Gold pineapples have already been sent and more are heading out on a weekly basis. The fruits are flown straight to California before being distributed to various cities across the country to ensure peak freshness. The CEO of Maui Gold’s parent company said it is a massive boost.

“It’s been a phenomenal opportunity for us to to open the wholesale channel, on the mainland as opposed to putting things on the water, which, you know, runs into the timeliness issue and the freshness issues. So, yeah, it’s a fabulous opportunity,” said Hawaii Farm Project CEO John White.

This is not just about pineapples, Sen. Wakai believes other Hawaii products and companies could jump on board with similar arrangements. He calls it a potential economic game-changer.

“The ability to get access to markets quickly and cheaply is a game changer. So, they could probably work, Or they can, whoever they might be, interested after seeing your story tonight, might want to call the Department of Agriculture and say, ‘I want to be next up for, benefiting from this Amazon partnership,'” Sen. Wakai said.

“So hopefully, yes, this opens the door for other farmers or ranchers or producers of goods in Hawaii to, fairly, economically and quickly get them to the mainland,” White said. “We always think about, the cost of shipping things to Hawaii. But this, this flips things around to, operate our, offering our products, to the mainland in a very expeditious, and, and cost effective way.”

Click here for more details about the partnership.