VanderSloot rescues jobs, gives ranchers $1.5 million in “game-changing” move for Hawaii’s cattle industry

Bobby Farias was desperate. The founder of Kunoa Cattle Company, a meat processing plant in Hawaii, couldn’t pay his employees, owed money to ranchers and had nearly a million dollars of cattle that had been slaughtered but not purchased. That’s when Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot stepped in. He not only bought the entire operation on the island of Oahu, but paid $1.5 million to the ranchers and several others who were owed money. The 50 or so employees of Kunoa, who were worried about their jobs, now have secure employment and every one of them received a pay raise. “The path we were on wasn’t going to allow a future without Frank stepping in and helping us get back on track,” Farias tells EastIdahoNews.com. “The way it was set up, there was nowhere to go.” Farias met VanderSloot years ago when the Idaho businessman needed to rent some corrals. VanderSloot’s Idaho Falls-based Riverbend Ranch has 500 cows in Kauai – cattle with some of the top genetics in the world. The two men became friends and VanderSloot quickly learned how tough the cattle industry is on the islands...MORE