 International Hawaii, I'm your host, Cindy Matsuki. International Hawaii showcases local import and export businesses to help others new to the industry. Today, my guest is Randy Kuba, founder of Mana Sioux and some other local companies. They're a local import company and also a foreign trade zone line tenant. Hey, thank you so much for joining me, Randy. Hi, thank you for inviting Cindy. Thank you. Yeah, it's good to have you. Could you briefly explain what your company is and how you got started? Well, Mana Sioux, LLC, is a local manufacturing import company. And we import healthy drinking vinegar from Okinawa. And we bottle it here and we add some Hawaiian ingredients to make it a made in Hawaii with a lower product down here. And yeah, that's the basic thrust of our company. How did you start, why did you choose this product and how did you get into it? How did you find the product itself, too? Well, I also bring in what they call Aomori. It's a distilled spirit from Okinawa with another company. And Mana Sioux is a byproduct of Aomori. So in other words, the liquid that's not made into alcohol, they save it and they turn it into vinegar. And that vinegar basically is a healthy non-alcohol similar to apple cider vinegar. And I happened to go to Okinawa and then visit the Aomori factories and they introduced this. They call it monomisu in Okinawa. But I felt it was too complicated to say that word, monomisu and bring it here. So I created my own brand called Mana Sioux. Mana meaning vital energy in Hawaiian and Sioux, meaning vinegar and Japanese. OK, so were you looking specifically for something to import while you were in Okinawa? Well, I always brought in Aomori. Yeah, and because, see, when I went to Okinawa, I went basically to find my heritage, understand my culture. And in the meantime, I bumped into a lot of incredible human beings and they're the villagers in Okinawa, in the remote villages in Okinawa. And they were extremely healthy. And they always drank this vinegar throughout the day. They just sipped it along with their tea. And of course, Okinawa is known to be the healthiest and longest living human beings in the world. I brought that product back and introduced it to some athletes here and some karate practitioners. And the older Okinawans know what it is. And that was my base of customers here. They continue to buy it from me. Wow, interesting. I'm surprised it's not more popular. Like, I haven't heard of that. Well, yeah, I guess apple cider vinegar is the vinegar to drink in the Western world. But Moromisu or what we call Manasu here is a new product. I see, I see. In Japan, all of Japan, they always drink vinegar or 70% of the population drinks vinegar in some form. And that's my mission and my goal is to introduce this new healthy drinking vinegar into the Western world. So when you found your supplier for Manasu, was it the same supplier that you brought your Aomori from? Yeah, same, exact same suppliers. There's about 47 different Aomori factories in Okinawa and only maybe about 10 of them produce drinking vinegar. And that's who I was associated with before and they continue to supply. Wow, that's great. And I'm half Okinawan and I didn't know. My family doesn't drink vinegar. Does it taste like vinegar, like you're drinking vinegar? Well, there's three types of vinegar that I bring in. One is vinegar with black Okinawan sugar. And the reason why is because the Western people, they like that sweetness, that sweet taste. So it's easy to drink. But it does have black sugar and black sugar is a natural black sugar in Okinawa. It's not white sugar. The second one is I bring it in plain or all natural and it does taste a little like apple cider vinegar. And the third one is the capsules. So the capsules are a natural vinegar in capsule form. So that's why it's a lot healthier for you because it doesn't have the black sugar, but it's very complete. You don't taste it. Yeah, you don't taste the vinegar. You just follow the capsule. Got it. And so when you bring in the capsules, are they already like so do you import them in bulk and then you repackage them here? Is that what you're doing? Yeah, so I bring everything in bulk here. I import it comes in with the omelette. OK, everything comes together. Yeah, so it comes in bulk. And then when it comes in here, I bottle it here, cap it here, label it here. And same thing with the capsules. It's all bottled here in Hawaii. What was the biggest challenge in starting up your company in Hawaii? Well, I think that the cost of living here is high. The warehousing is high, the shipping is high. We would have to get the components from outside of Hawaii. The bottles I get from Mexico, the caps from Napa Valley, the labels from Colorado, liquid from Okinawa. And it all comes here. And then we put it together. And of course, the label design is made here. Try to use local graphic designers here. So that's the challenge. Yeah, it's getting the components here. Yeah. How about even trying to import spirits? Is that more challenging than being in regular product? Yeah, it's much more challenging. And the reason is because you've got to go through these regulations. It's highly regulated, both federal and state. And city and county. So you would have to get the licenses first to import it. And of course, dealing with alcohol, you're always dealing with different people. So is it just more paperwork and more regulations that you just need to be aware of and comply with? Yeah, there's tariffs to deal with, there's customs to deal with. Of course, you've got to label, approve all of your alcohol. You've got to formula, approve it to the federal government. They call it TTB, Tax and Trade Bureau. And all of that needs to be done before it's imported here in Hawaii. So we import the Aomori from Okinawa. And it helps because we import the vinegar and the Aomori at the same time. Because it's not on the cost. Yeah, so you have more to ship? Yeah. Do you have any horror stories about importing any really bad things happen? Well, I think the important thing is to really be a good operator. And when I mean good operator, because the components come from all different areas, you just have to keep checking and double checking with your suppliers and trust your suppliers that they're going to send you the correct component. So one of the horror stories when I first began is I didn't double check on certain things. So the bottles came in, the liquid came in, labels, of course, came in. But the caps is what we call T caps. The T caps didn't fit on the bottle. Oh, no. If it doesn't fit on the bottle, if you can see it, anyway, you can't see it. Wow. If it doesn't fit on the bottle, you can't complete the product. Yeah. And you would have to call the supplier, look it up with the suppliers and the correct cap in. And then reschedule your workers and then. And in the meantime, everything's just sitting there. Yeah, yeah. And then start all over again. And then so all the components need to fit. You need to double check before shipped out. Because once it shipped out, once it gets to Hawaii, it's yours. And then you'll take everything to unravel to get it back to the supplier because you don't need it. And get reimbursed by the shipping company. You can't get reimbursed by the shipping company, but hopefully the supplier. By the supplier. That is challenging, especially putting together all these different components from different places. How did you find your different suppliers for all different products? Well, it's just by word of mouth. When you're in the distilled spirits industry, it's a closed industry. So you're talking to other distillers, small distillers in different states. And they always recommend a good supplier for something, whether it's labels, bottles, caps, seals, cartons, shipping companies, trucking companies. They're all close nets. So that's how I find my suppliers. Getting into the industry, you just hear from different people about what they're doing. Yeah. You really have to be relentless and tenacious in calling different people and asking their advice. And they are very willing to give advice because they're in the same boat as you. Someday we'll do business in the future. Oh, that's good. That's really good. So it's about building those relationships with people in the industry? Yeah. It's about networking. And it's about joining different associations, the distilled spirits associations, and the health associations, and so forth. They're very helpful. We're all in the same boat, and we're trying to make it. That's good. That's good. I mean, it's not good that it's not cutthroat and just. There are. And that's some of the challenges there. That's why you really have to trust and get to know the suppliers and your customers and so forth. We got a question from one of our viewers. They're asking, what does Manasu help with? Like what types of ailments or symptoms? Or what are the health benefits? Well, anything apple cider vinegar does, Manasu does also. Manasu, the component, it has 43 more citric acid than any other vinegar. And the citric acid is the key because it helps regulate your alkaline. And it helps with a lot of athletes use it because sometimes they get cramps. So when they're working out hard, some of the athletes before they carry around pickle juice to alleviate the cramps or they carry around mustard. So with the Manasu, when you take it daily, it does eliminate the cramps. Really? So a lot of karate practitioners use it. A lot of good athletes that run and are active, hiking and so forth, they're using it a lot. Interesting. That's great. We're going to let more people know about it. We're going to take a quick break. This is International Hawai'i on think te koei. And we'll be right back. Welcome back to International Hawai'i on think te koei. This is Cindy Matsuki, your host from the Foreign Trade Zone 9. Our guest today is Randy Kuba. He's the founder of Manasu, a health product, a vinegar health product. And so we were just talking about the health benefits of Manasu and about marketing the product because I hadn't heard of it before. And I definitely heard of apple cider vinegar. But how are you growing your market for Manasu? Well, right now I'm trying to learn things on social media and getting help from the state on that. I think right now it's just by word of mouth. And I was very fortunate because a lot of the Okinawan community, they purchase it by families. So they'll buy it in cases. And then when they buy the cases, they pick it up and they distribute it to their family members. And basically that's how it's being distributed now. It's also in times supermarkets. Not all of the times, but the key, about seven or eight times supermarkets. It's in Ake Shop in Kakaaku. Marukai in Danki Hote also carries it. And then some other smaller specialty shops around town. OK, good. As a health product? In the health section, yeah. Health or vinegar section in the supermarkets. I'll have to go look for that. And then you mentioned you got assistance from the state. What program did you take advantage of? Well, because the COVID last year developed, of course, a lot of the restaurants were closing down. So I was going to have a program with them called Mock Cocktails. Mock cocktails are cocktails without alcohol. But of course, that didn't develop. So I was forced to pretty much learn how to go online quickly. So the state helped with Ellen's program. We had nine classes that taught about the marketing and the operations and how to deal with Shopify and all of the things that I didn't know that I had to learn quickly. And that's how basically I'm getting the products now to the mainland customers. It's all online now. That's great. So you've seen your online sales grow since you've launched your online presence? Yeah, it's growing steady and slowly. And the majority of customers are in California. Surprisingly, there's a big gap between customers in California and then on the East Coast, they're ordering a lot. And anywhere in between, there's not much. California and the East Coast is where the customers are right now. Interesting. That's great. And do you think, I mean, what has been the impact of the pandemic on your company? Well, I think it forced me anyway to learn online quickly. And I think that's the key because it opened up a whole area of customers outside of Hawaii, not only in California and the East Coast, but we're getting inquiries now from Canada, Vancouver, and Toronto. And I think that's probably where the future is, is learning high tech and online and getting to these people targeted marketing strategy and shot gunning all over the place. And in your market, your market is so much bigger. I mean, compared to just marketing in Hawaii, you can market it to wherever. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's what I learned with the pandemic. It pretty much forced me to do online quickly and learn quickly how to deal with Shopify, shipping companies like FedExpress, UPS, the Post Office, and so forth. And yeah, so that's where the advantage is right now. How do you take advantage of the foreign trade zone now that you're here, since you're here? Well, I was always at the foreign trade zone. But the thing is that we had a tasting room in M426. And a lot of the buyers and the restaurant owners came in and tasted not only the distilled spirits but the vinegar. But because we couldn't have the tasting room, it turned into an office and it turned into an online assembly operation. So that's where I send out the packages to the mainland. And the Post Office and FedExpress, UPS, they all come on a regular basis. That's how I get it out. Got it. And then what advice would you give to somebody who's thinking about importing or just starting out importing? If you have any advice or lessons learned that you want to help somebody not? Well, I think it's learning how to deal with people because you're still dealing with people in a matter if you go online or text. It's building good relationships with your suppliers and trusting them and they trust you. And of course, the customers. And I'm still learning how to deal with people because there's all different types of people. There's aggressive people and there's passive. And it's just no matter what you have to sell. You have to sell to these people and people are going to sell to you and adjusting to those people because people is what they buy and sell products. And if you deal with them correctly, then you'll get progress. You'll have a sale. You'll have a sale, yeah. Do you work with a customs broker to help you with your importing? Yeah, I work with Lance Sato and he does everything. And that's why I like dealing with him because he goes above and beyond. And he's very helpful. He does everything for me. Yeah, so as an importer, it's very important to find a good broker that you can work with. Yeah, yeah. Make sure your products are clear. Yeah, and I think that's the... Go ahead. Go ahead. All right, and I think that's the key is dealing with people that you trust. And it took a long time for me to get the right components where there's a customs broker, shipping company, suppliers for bottles, suppliers for labels, the caps, and the liquid, of course. And then dealing with a good warehouse. And I do have the warehouse at the back of Aloha Tofu when they've been extremely helpful. Oh, good. Yeah, it's so complex. And it sounds like you have to deal with so many different people. It's good that you have to find people you trust. Definitely. Where can people find out more information about your products? Well, besides going to Tynes and Marukai and Don Quixote and Saki Shop and some of the other smaller retailers, you can go online and get the information, healthymanasu.com. And you can make appointments one-on-one at the tasting room, one line. Yeah. Is the tasting room just for customers or is it for businesses? I open it up to everyone because I'm trying to educate people about not only about the manasu, but about our own. So it's open to everyone. Oh, that's great. Very good. And then lastly, this is my random question that I give to all my guests, a different question. What has been your pandemic pastime activity? Mine has been gardening. When you're on your own business, it's You have no time. You have no time. Like 24 hours. So I try to walk if that's possible, but I'll give my wife to walk too. That's not quality time together. Yeah, that's good. Have you been, do you find that you've been busier now that you're online? Well, yeah. I mean, you have to work harder, of course, because I do have some independent contractors that I bring in, not only produce the bottle, but pack the packages and so forth. But yeah, working much harder because we have to work harder because you got just one shot at customers. So it should be right. Wow. That's amazing. I give you so much credit. Small businesses work so hard. That's great. And just to make a plug is that a lot of us pretty much rely on dealing with small business to small business because we're all on the same boat. It is good dealing with larger businesses, but I really admire small businesses for keeping up with what they're doing. So challenging. Definitely. But thank you so much for your time. Thank you for joining me on International Hawaii. Thank you for inviting Cindy. I appreciate it. Yeah, and then we'll see you here next time on Think Tech with International Hawaii. Thanks.