Hawaiian Chip Company is rolling out Mānoa Mix, an officially licensed University of Hawaiʻi snack line, timed to arrive for the Rainbow Warriors' home and conference opener against UNLV on Saturday. The Kalihi-based chip maker is putting the mix in front of fans at UH football concessions, and it will also land on shelves at the UH Mānoa Bookstore, the company's Kalihi factory store, and Waipahu's Tanioka's. Founder Jimmy Chan, who graduated from UH Mānoa and now owns the company, has called the partnership a full-circle moment.
The mix itself is a small-batch lineup of taro chips, Okinawan purple sweet potato chips, golden sweet potato chips, and kettle-style potato chips, according to KHON2. It's sold in one-ounce and 4.5-ounce bags, and the company says its Kalihi factory storefront will have freshly made batches available this Saturday. Hawaiian Chip Company prepares its root vegetables by hand-peeling and slicing them before cooking the chips in small batches, and the outlet reports the company sources Hawaiʻi-grown ingredients whenever possible.
From Tabletop Fryer to Stadium Concessions
Chan's path to a licensed UH product traces back to 2000, when he founded Hawaiian Chip Company in Kalihi using a tabletop fryer to make sweet potato chips for local swap meets and craft fairs, according to Junior Achievement of Hawaiʻi Island. That origin story, built with family help after Chan watched cooking shows, eventually grew into a statewide food brand. Chan was inducted into the organization's Business Hall of Fame in August 2025, recognized for expanding the company and for serving on state business and food manufacturing boards.
The company's ties to UH Mānoa run deeper than Chan's own degree. In November 2024, Hawaiian Chip Company served as the spotlight corporate partner for UH Mānoa's inaugural Innovate 808 challenge, hosted by the Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship, where student teams designed 3D packaging renderings and retail ideas for the chip maker, per University of Hawaiʻi System News. Summer interns also helped execute the new Mānoa Mix snack, and the company plans to offer fall internship opportunities, per the KHON2 report.
Kalihi Factory Freed Up Floor Space for Chips
The expanded chip lineup follows an operational shift inside the company's Kalihi factory. In April, Hawaiian Chip Company announced it was winding down its Menehune Mac chocolate line to clear floor space and reallocate labor specifically toward expanding chip manufacturing. The company had acquired Menehune Mac in 2021 before consolidating operations, and the pivot away from hand-scooped chocolates appears to have set the stage for Mānoa Mix's launch this season.
Any product carrying UH's name and logos has to clear a formal licensing process. Under guidelines established in 1983, the University of Hawaiʻi Collegiate Licensing Office requires all commercial merchandise carrying university names, logos, or team identifiers to operate under official licensing agreements, generating royalty revenues for campus and athletic programs, according to the University of Hawaiʻi System. Unauthorized commercial use of UH marks violates state and federal trademark laws, which is why the officially licensed designation on Mānoa Mix's packaging matters.
Concessions Push Fits a Bigger UH Sponsorship Trend
Fans will find Mānoa Mix at concessions inside the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex, the on-campus stadium retrofitted in 2021 and expanded to a 15,194-seat capacity in 2023 following the 2020 closure of Aloha Stadium, which was condemned due to structural rust. The venue has become a proving ground for new commercial partnerships tied to UH Athletics, a push that also includes UH football uniforms featuring a Hawaiian Airlines Pualani logo patch for the 2026 season, the program's first commercial jersey sponsor after the NCAA recently opened jersey patches to outside brands.
That appetite for new revenue lines up with UH Mānoa's broader financial picture. Hoodline has previously reported that the university's athletic department put out a $22.3 million funding request to state lawmakers earlier this year to keep its sports programs afloat, underscoring why licensing deals like Mānoa Mix carry weight beyond snack sales.
Local Sourcing Faces Real Limits
Hawaiian Chip Company's pledge to source Hawaiʻi-grown ingredients whenever possible runs up against a broader supply challenge facing the state's food system. Hawaii imports an estimated 80% to 90% of its food supply annually at a cost of roughly $3 billion, according to research published on ResearchGate, a gap that has driven state economic initiatives to expand local agricultural production and value-added food manufacturing. Root crops central to Mānoa Mix, like taro, have their own history of supply strain: commercial taro production in Hawaii dropped to historic lows of 5.0 million pounds in 2003 due to invasive apple snail infestations and agricultural land shifts, per the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Those pressures mean year-round sourcing of 100% Hawaii-grown root vegetables remains an operational hurdle for local snack makers, even as products like Mānoa Mix aim to give local growers higher margins through value-added processing. For now, fans looking to try the new mix have several options this weekend, from the Ching Athletics Complex concourse to the aisles of Tanioka's in Waipahu, the West Oahu poke landmark founded in 1978 that regularly stocks goods from local vendors.
