Shortage of lei ahead of Mother’s Day and the start of Hawaii’s graduation season

By Kristen Consillio

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    HONOLULU, Hawaii (KITV) — The owner of Tina’s Lei Shop in Chinatown relies heavily on Mother’s Day and graduation season to sustain her small business.

“We were making enough profit to pay for our rent for the whole year,” said owner Tina Nguyen.

During a typical day, this shop might see 10 people, but during Mother’s Day and graduation season, hundreds of people come here for lei.

But after almost three years of losses due to COVID-19, she’s facing another major obstacle — a shortage of lei.

“Because of the shortage it also drives up the price too so like I told all the customers the price is really high now, but we don’t make as much of a profit like before,” Nguyen said.

Supply-chain issues, labor shortages and loss of production are to blame. As well as getting lei into the islands with most of the orchid ones coming from Asia.

“The real problem right now is over the last two weeks most of the incoming lei from Asia have been confiscated by (agriculture) for some reason. That is creating a huge vacuum and a very, very low supply heading into Mother’s Day weekend,” said Monty Pereira, general manager of Watanabe Floral.

Watanabe Floral estimates a 50% shortage this week, which is why it’s limiting the number of lei per shopper.

But having enough lei isn’t the only problem. A helium shortage is also stifling balloon sales.

“We had ordered, you know, tanks and tanks of helium,” Pereira said. “We got one half of one tank delivered to us today. So you could have no lei and no balloons come graduation, which would be very … sad.”

Shop owners are just hoping supply will catch up to demand by the time high school graduations commence later this month. But for right now, many graduates face the very real prospect of going without the traditional lei to celebrate their milestone.

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