Business lessons from the family behind King’s Hawaiian

UI have a big one today folks! I’m excited to reveal mine Forbes magazine featuring King’s Hawaiian and the family behind the reels, the Tairas.

The business, run by the founder’s son Mark Tyra since 1983, is the crown jewel of the food industry and the family’s story has become a story of success and the American dream. My comprehensive profile covers what they’ve accomplished and where they’re headed.

After spending time with Mark at the family’s roll factory—where we ate hot King’s Hawaiian rolls fresh off the line—we headed back to headquarters in Torrance, California, to sit down. I also interviewed his children and many other longtime employees. I share everything in six pages.

I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say that their roles are category-defining, and the business itself is quite a lot desired – both by bankers, investors, grocers and competitors. Requests to buy King’s Hawaiian come in all the time, says David W. Hasenbalg, head of the food and beverage group at RBC’s City National Bank, who has worked with the Tyra family for two decades.

The Tyras say they never want to sell. But if they did, it would probably be a huge deal, Hassenbalg says: “Huge. I mean huge. Your odds will be off the charts and the dollars will be huge.

Read the feature yourself. Lessons abound. Here’s one: Create a wide moat around the castle. King’s Hawaiian has a big impact with retailers because the buns sell faster than they expire, unlike fresh bread in supermarket bakeries prone to waste. When King’s Hawaiian’s sales team meets with grocery shoppers, they can promote what sales reps rarely can: King’s Hawaiian helps them do business, says John Linehan, CEO of King’s Hawaiian parent company Irresistible Foods Group.

“Sometimes I tell them,” Linehan told me, “‘The reason you made your bonus three years in a row is because of this brand.’ Don’t ask me for a cent price reduction. I just used up some jet fuel to get here if that’s all you want to talk about.

Here’s how King’s Hawaiian closes deals and why the 100% family business is just getting started.

I’ll be dipping King’s Hawaiian’s newest offering — sweet bagel bites — into a roasted spinach artichoke dip on Super Bowl Sunday. Are sliders in your future this weekend?

— Chloe Sorvino, staff writer

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Order my book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meatout now from Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books.

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Field notes

I started my trip with Hawaiian reports of the King breakfast with Mark’s son Tyra Winston at King’s Hawaiian Bakery & Restaurant in Torrance, California, minutes from their headquarters and original roll factory. I enjoyed a plate of scrambled eggs, Portuguese sausage and fried rice, a side of King’s Hawaiian French toast and Shaka iced tea.

I couldn’t resist finishing the meal with a specialty from business founder Robert Tyra, who was well known for his chiffon cakes. The paradise cake pictured is one of the Tyra family’s favorites and I quickly understood why. There are three layers of different flavors – guava, passion fruit and lime – and the cloud-like fluff mixed with tropical flavors blew my mind.

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Chloe Sorvino leads food and agriculture coverage as a staff writer on the Forbes corporate team. her book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meat, published on December 6, 2022 with Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. Her nearly nine years reporting for Forbes have taken her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, parched farms in California’s Central Valley, burned national forests logged by a lumber billionaire, a century-old slaughterhouse in Omaha, and even a chocolate croissant factory designed as a medieval castle in northern France.