We’re three 24-year olds turning locally grown Hawai’i bananas into a dairy-free soft serve and we’re ready to build our first store!

UPDATE: THANKS & KEEP SHARING!

THANK YOU ALL ONCE AGAIN! We’ve hit our first stretch goal of $25,000 so Banán Blends will debut on our new storefront’s menu! Now that we’ve achieved the delicious let’s hike up the fun! Our new stretch goal will be set at $30,000. With this extra investment we will purchase sound equipment, mood lighting, and other materials to design a Sound Lounge corner for our store! This designated space will host local music artists, open mic nights, and educational talks. Being across the street from University of Hawai’i and a stones throw from many high schools, we’d love nothing more than to create a space for our community to manifest their creativity! PLEASE KEEP SHARING AND KEEP BACKING!

Aloha

We’re three twenty-four year olds who turn local Hawai’i grown bananas into a healthy non-dairy soft-serve – no dairy and no added sugar. We call it Banán! Currently we’ve just made over a year in business at our food truck and we’re ready to build our first store! We strive to support local farmers as much as possible and compost all of our food waste – Farm-to-Table and Table-to-Farm. We provide a food experience that is fun, delicious, and meaningful.

The Fun

On a visit to Banán one can expect to relax under our bamboo shade structure, flip through a Nat Geo picture book, or laugh at our face-painted employees as they dance to loud music and shake our truck. We strongly focus on providing a fun experience for both our customers and employees. We believe that happy and energetic employees equals the warmest customer service you’ve ever had! This fun and warmth will only grow as we design our first store!

The Delicious

Locally grown Hawai’i bananas are our main ingredient but we also flavor up the mix with other fruits, veggies, herbs and spices. We’ve offered an assortment of flavors from Banana, Acaí, Greens (ginger, mint, spirulina, and kale), Liliko’i (passion fruit), Mango, ‘Olena (turmeric, ginger), and Strawberry Pitaya. We’re currently developing more flavors for our first store, where we’ll offer six to eight daily versus our food truck’s four. Oh and did we mention sometimes we serve Banán out of a papaya boat!

The Meaningful

As mentioned, we strongly focus on supporting our local agriculture. We do this because it stimulates our local economy, reduces our carbon foot print, and it’s simply fun visiting our farmer friends around the island. We also consciously dispose of all our food waste by composting it at Kunia Country Farms or giving it to Dave Ostermann of The Slop Man LLC to help feed his pig farms. Recognizing profound relationships within our world and eating consciously is what we love and pursue. To us, this is our favorite ingredient and makes our eating experience full, energetic, and meaningful.

Our Story

After graduating from the same high school we went our separate ways to attend universities across the states. We remained in touch throughout our studies and during senior year we realigned with a spirit of entrepreneurship. Whatever it be, we wanted to create something that would move the world in a fun and mindful direction.

While brainstorming other ideas, we joked about commercializing a classic vegan recipe for one-ingredient “banana ice cream.” The joke evolved into a serious lead when we realized we were all from Hawai’i — one of the few states that commercially grows and sells bananas. Eureka! We would move home to create a healthy farm-to-table alternative to frozen yogurt and acaí bowls! And hey, why not compost all of our food scraps while we’re at it!

And so it was, we met back home in September of 2014 — Galen returned from his summer travels in Asia, Matt from Burning Man, Zak from road tripping across the states, and Luke who had been studying at The University of Hawaii while traveling the globe with his professional surfer girlfriend, Carissa Moore.

Should we start in the Farmers’ Markets? Should we get a store? After an irresistibly cheap deal on Craigslist our fate was decided for us — FOOD TRUCK! We spontaneously purchased our truck and had no idea what we were doing, nonetheless where we were to even park the humongous thing! We surfed out our spontaneity, did some R&D, painted up the truck and opened for our first day of sales on December 19, 2014 at the final day of Pipemasters. Shortly after, we opened up on Monsarrat Ave. with great support from family and friends.

And so here we are today, working from our food truck at the base of Diamond Head while taking surf breaks around the corner. We’ve somehow hired an amazing staff that we consider one big family. We’re ready to grow and we’re ready to build our first store.

The Store

Currently, we’ve secured a lease for an amazing storefront across the street from University of Hawai’i. It’s a stones throw from many high schools and elementary schools in the area. Being in such a youthful center point we intend to get involved with education as our business steadies. As of now, we’ve raised funds from our first year in business and a bit through family and friends. However, we need a little more to comfortably purchase our equipment, hire professional contractors, and train a team of employees before opening.

Funding Goals

$20,000 We will comfortably be able to pay our contractors and our new staff as we train them before opening. We will also be able to purchase extra equipment that will allow us to provide up to 7 or 8 flavors!

Stretch Goals

$25,000 We will purchase 3-4 commercial grade blenders and add a new product line, “Banán Blends.” Our Blends would incorporate our delicious dairy-free soft-serve blended with local fruit juice, nut milks, and more to serve as a grab and go drink!

$30,000+ If we gain support that approaches this level, we will dance around and celebrate and then give our backers an update on what all your generosity will mean for the growth of Banán! Stay tuned.

We hope you resonate with our business, join our story, and collect on some of our awesome rewards!