Dole Superkids

Although pineapples grow in many tropical regions of the world most of us associate pineapples with Hawaii. Captain Cook may have brought pineapple to the Hawaiian Islands or the fruit may have been washed ashore from Spanish shipwrecks. Spanish explorers knew that eating pineapple helped to prevent scurvy, a disease caused by a deficiency or lack of vitamin C, so they carried pineapples among their ship's provisions whenever possible.

Pineapple, "halakahiki" in Hawaiian, meaning foreign fruit, has been grown in Hawaii since the early 1800's. In 1816 a wild variety of pineapple was found growing on the Big Island of Hawaii. On January 21, 1823 a counselor to Hawaii's King Kamehameha The Great wrote in his diary... "This day I planted pineapples and an orange tree." The first attempts to grow pineapples commercially in Hawaii date back to the 1850's.

In 1901, Jim Dole founded the Hawaiian Pineapple Company. With his emphasis on "quality, quality, quality," he worked to achieve his goal of making pineapple available in every grocery store in the United States.