Since 1936, Atebara Chips has been making history as Hawaiʻi's first and original chip company. Founded by Raymond Atebara in Hilo, the company got its start making potato chips — but when wartime rationing cut off the potato supply, they turned to something closer to home: locally grown sweet potato and taro. Atebara's was the first to bring taro chips to Hawaiʻi's local market, a tradition they still carry on today.

Now operating as Hawaiʻi Island Gourmet Products, Atebara sources its sweet potatoes and taro from 15 family farms across Hawaiʻi Island, plus its own 20-acre farm north of Hilo. Every chip is still made fresh daily — cut, kettle-fried, and hand-packaged at their original Manono Street location in Hilo, where the factory was rebuilt after the 1946 tsunami.

Sustainability runs deep in their process, too: plant waste goes to a local piggery, new taro is grown from previously cut stalks, and used cooking oil is recycled into biofuel.

Nearly 90 years later, Atebara Chips is still doing what they've always done — turning Hawaiʻi-grown ingredients into a snack that's proudly, deliciously local.