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The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 9:32 a.m., Friday, July 25, 2008

Maui Land & Pine issues news release

Here is the full text of a press release today from Maui Land & Pineapple Company:

KAHULUI, Hawaii — Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc. (NYSE:MLP) today announced it has reduced its workforce by 274 positions. The action is primarily a response to rising costs in the company's Maui Pineapple Company unit, but includes cuts throughout the company. The cuts represent a 26 percent decrease in MLP's workforce of 1,045 and will save the company approximately $11 million in annual operating expenses.

Job reductions occurred across all levels and affected both management and labor at the corporate level and in the company's two subsidiaries, Kapalua Land Company, Ltd. and Maui Pineapple Company, Ltd. The company is assisting the affected employees with severance packages and applicable federal and state workforce development programs. Severance costs of approximately $3 million will offset some of the immediate savings generated by the job reductions.

"We are experiencing sharply deteriorating fundamentals in the pineapple unit," said David C. Cole, MLP's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Rising fuel, fertilizer, packaging and logistics costs have outstripped price increases resulting in operating losses of over $62 million within the past three years at Maui Pineapple Company. We are now rapidly shrinking the pineapple unit to concentrate on local markets and a handful of selected accounts on the mainland."

Maui Pineapple Company will lose 204 of the 274 eliminated positions. The company has also eliminated 46 jobs at its Kapalua Resort unit and a combined 24 positions in its corporate services and community development divisions.

About Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Inc.

MLP is a Hawai'i corporation and successor to a business organized in 1909. Its principal operating subsidiaries are Maui Pineapple Company Ltd., a producer and marketer of Maui Gold (R) pineapple, and Kapalua Land Company Ltd., operator of Kapalua Resort, a master-planned resort community in West Maui.

Certain statements made in this press release are forward-looking statements that reflect management's current outlook and are based upon current assumptions. These statements include, among others, statements regarding the incurrence of restructuring charges and anticipated benefits resulting from the restructuring. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of the following factors, among others: the ability of the Company to realize savings and other benefits resulting from the reduction, the actual costs incurred as a result of the restructuring, the operating performance of each of the Company's business segments and other risks and uncertainties included in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2007 and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2008. The Company undertakes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained herein or to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date hereof.