Rim-Pac Trading files for Chapter 7

By Frank Cho
Advertiser Staff Writer

The financially troubled Hawaii Rim-Pac Trading Co. Ltd., a Honolulu coffee roasting company that catered primarily to the Japanese market, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Friday.

The company, which has operated as Hawaiian Aloha Coffee Co. and Big Island Pacific Coffee, listed debts of between $500,000 and $1 million. The company did not reveal any assets in Friday's bankruptcy filing.

Rim-Pac Trading made its last shipment of coffee to Japan last month, according to Hawaii Air Cargo, which shipped coffee for the company and is stilled owed money.

Besides the Internal Revenue Service, other creditors named in the filing included Hawaiian Kona Coffee Co., Kona Coffee Connection and local law firm Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert.

Shunichiro Fukada, who owns the company, also filed personally for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Friday, listing between $500,000 and $1 million in debt.

Fukada is a former manager with UCC, one of the biggest coffee distributors in Japan, and listed himself as a creditor of Rim-Pac Trading.

Along with a number of credit-card companies and banks, Fukada listed the roughly 30 vendors, suppliers and law firms as creditors. They are the same creditors listed by Rim-Pac Trading.

Kendal Luke, attorney for Fukada, said the company and Fukada will file details of their assets and debts within the next two weeks.