Christmas trees begin arriving

The holiday season's first shipment of mainland Christmas trees sailed into Honolulu Harbor yesterday, with 39 containers of trees primarily destined for store displays and neighbor island sales starting this week.

"If people are going to get a tree, they are going to get a tree no matter what," he said. "Traditions are too important to people - they are not willing to give them up."

However, tradition this year will contend with fewer post-Thanksgiving shopping days, meaning one less weekend - key to sales of this particular commodity, Dungey says - for tree hunting. The Thanksgiving holiday falls on Nov. 27 this year, five days later than in 2007.

Also, retail sales nationwide continued to decline last month, dropping in October by the most since records began in 1992, the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday. In Hawaii, layoffs are mounting across industry sectors, sending the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate to 4.5 percent in September, its highest level in more than six-and-a-half years.

A slumping economy isn't deterring Richard Tajiri, who was cutting trees last week for his Christmas Hawaii tree lot at Ala Moana Center, set to open for its 33rd season just before Thanksgiving. Tajiri's first holiday trees arrived yesterday to fill commercial orders.

Tajiri is shipping his usual assortment of 5,000 Noble, Douglas, Grand and Norman firs to Hawaii this year, but he is lowering prices by as much as a third, reflecting five decreases in the past two months in fuel surcharges by Matson Navigation Co., Hawaii's largest ocean shipper.

His most popular tree, the 6-foot Noble Fir, will sell for the same price as it did nine years ago - from $35 to $50.

"They are the most beautiful trees ever to come to Hawaii," he said. "I should have bought more; I thought, I don't know, with the economy the way it is."

Tajiri works with four farmers in Washington and Oregon to harvest trees, which he delayed cutting by a week this year to avoid unusually dry conditions.

Most Hawaii-bound trees are transported on rail from Portland, Ore., to Seattle, where they are loaded onto a Matson cargo ship that makes a seven-day trip to Honolulu, stopping in Oakland, Calif.

Matson will ship more than 100,000 trees to Hawaii in four shipments through the first week in December, said spokesman Jeff Hull. Its largest shipments will arrive Saturday and Nov. 29. The state Department of Agriculture takes about a day to inspect them for insects and other invasive species.

"The amount of containers that are coming in are down from last year," said Domingo Cravalho Jr., chief of the Department of Agriculture's Inspection and Compliance Section, which inspects all imported trees. "I'm not sure if that is an effect of the economy, because of fuel costs or people not having as much money as last year."

The department is expecting more than 200 containers this year, about 60 containers fewer than last year, when the state received about 150,000 trees.

Tacoma, Wash.-based Kirk Co. is one of six major tree growers shipping to Hawaii through Matson this year. Owner and President Ralph Nilssen said the company ships tens of thousands of trees to the islands, or about 15 percent of its West Coast business. Prices and orders have remained steady from last year, when the company increased its isle shipment by 10 percent.

"We price our trees pretty early in the year," Nilssen said. "As I have been watching fuel rise over the year, I thought it would be a real problem for us. It has taken a downturn, but I was really concerned about how that would impact the consumer there."

This year, Nilssen put his entire isle crop through a shaking process to remove invasive pests, at the request of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture. In prior years, 10 to 20 percent of trees would get shaken before shipment.

In 2007, McMinnville, Ore.-based cargo shipper Evergreen International Aviation Inc. estimated it lost $1 million when its first-ever planeload to Hawaii of 3,150 Douglas, Noble and Grand firs was rerouted to Anchorage, Alaska, after several genera of wasps were found on board.

"Last year we used our own Boeing 747, which are all maxed out internationally," said Hollie Spivey, Evergreen's Christmas tree sales manager. "It is not financially feasible for us to take a flight out of service this year."

This season, Evergreen is ocean shipping up to five containers to Hawaii the week of Thanksgiving, likely two or three 40-foot containers holding 400 to 500 trees to Oahu and another order to Kona, either in one of the larger containers or a 20-foot container holding 300 trees. The company has an order pending for Maui. The trees primarily will be sold at private-school fundraisers.

Evergreen is also auctioning up to 150 6-foot Noble Firs being shipped in the first week of December via two air-freight containers. The trees will arrive two days after being cut and will sell to the first 150 people that make the highest bids. All trees shipped to Hawaii will be run through a new facility that will allow trees to be processed and moved into a truck indoors, reducing the risk of contamination by pests.

Hawaii is a small slice of Evergreen's total market. The company runs an 8,000-acre farm in Oregon, about 800 acres of which are devoted to the harvesting of 100,000 Christmas trees annually.

More than 30,000 trees already have been shipped internationally, primarily to Asia, Spivey said.

Last year, the National Christmas Tree Association, based in Chesterfield, Mo., reported a spike in the number of artificial Christmas trees purchased, up 46.6 percent to 17.4 million households from 9.3 million in 2006 - netting almost as much market value as the $1.3 billion U.S. real tree market. Results are based on a weighted random survey of 1,003 households.

Claire Calimlim, who oversees Christmas tree sales as a merchant at City Mill, said the company has ordered 10 percent to 15 percent more artificial trees this season than a year ago, while it will bring in the same number of real trees.

"We are finding out that a lot of people are buying artificial ones this year," she said. "Because of the freight, maybe people are going to expect the price of live trees to go up."

City Mill is "slightly" increasing prices on its live trees this year, which start at $39. The isle home-improvement company will bring in 10 containers, or about 3,000 trees, available at the end of the week.

Prices of artificial trees start at $9.99 for tabletop sizes, and go up to $129.99 for the larger varieties.

Out of customers who buy real trees, nearly 84 percent chose pre-cut trees, the survey said. Since 2006, there has been another option on Oahu: Helemano Farms.

Aaron O'Brien devotes 14 acres on his 15-acre farm near Wahiawa to growing more than 12,000 Norfolk Pines and Leland Cypress Christmas trees. O'Brien said sales of the trees, which start at $40, doubled last year. But at 1,500 sold in 2007, Helemano has cornered just 1 percent of the isle Christmas tree market.

"Once they come out they always get a tree and they always come back," he said. "You don't have the shipping out here, and they last you beyond Easter. People that are allergic to pine trees won't be allergic to Norfolk Pines."

O'Brien is pruning some of the Norfolks, which have a 2-year growth cycle, to make them look like more traditional mainland varieties. Aaron's dad, Mike O'Brien, started the farm in 2003 as a retirement project, but died a year later.

"That's what his family would do for their Christmas tree," Aaron said. "It would be a family event. He pretty much wanted to bring that to Hawaii. Out of 12,000 trees, you don't think you can find one you like?"