Pinoy food ingenuity

I hope you didn’t miss the recent Sikat Pinoy Food Fair at the Megatrade  Halls 1 – 3 sponsored by the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) last March 16 – 20.  If you did, you would have missed out once again on Filipino ingenuity because that is what the DTI promised in this food fair — Piling Piling Pagkaing Pilipino.

This new series is the latest in the DTI’s roster of trade events which has created quite a following, if you were to judge from the attendance and the number of exhibitors that continue to swell with each new exhibit. We at B&L have made it a point to cover all of the trade shows of DTI, and in the course of covering these fairs, we have seen how the different sectors participating in the different trade shows have also grown over the years.

The Center for International Trade, Exibits and Missions (CITEM), the promotional arm of DTI, must be cited for their tireless effort in bringing the Filipino genius and creativity not only to the domestic market but also to the rest of the world.

Most of the exhibitors in the national food fair are “repeaters”— they have been exhibiting their products in all of the DTI fairs despite the fact that they have carved a name for themselves. They are still a constant presence in such exhibits.

The banana and camote chips are still there, and the good news is these are already successfully exported to different countries.  There are already several brands and variants of bottled sardines, and we saw the novel polvoron-in-a-stick.  There are also so many brands now of fresh fruit juices and coconut water. The new chicharon is now instant and microwaveable, perfect for instant visitors. Those are just a few of the Pinoy products on display, but there are new products that are worth mentioning.

This year, the Pasay City government had a big space allocated for an environment-friendly and reasonably-priced home product — the portable farm where you can grow your own food right in the tight confines of your home. Even in the window of your kitchen or in your small condominium unit, in fact. They call these the sub-irrigated planters that are vertically grown so that space is not a problem. The City Cooperative Development Officer of Pasay City was there to demonstrate and explain how these planters work. As you can imagine, I am not into these things but what interested my wife Babes about them is the fact that one can enjoy growing fresh tomatoes, eggplants and different herbs, a virtual instant garden in a tight condo unit. There is already a reservoir of water at the base so the plant can stay without watering for two weeks, saving you water, time and effort. The kit also has its own composter — these contain vermiworms that help fertilize the plant itself. Check them out at the roof deck of the Pasay Public Market which serves as their demo farm for the portable farms or living walls as they call them, and other products like hydrophonics, aquaphonics, etc.

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You must have heard of the growing popularity of the Malagos chocolate from Davao.  The farm owners also had  their own booth there and the owner, Rex Puentespina, gladly talked about their product which was launched only in 2012 but has already received international recognition for excellence. Their first introduction to the Philippine market was in a CITEM-sponsored food fair which made ice cream makers and home bakers take notice of them.  It is pure chocolate, Rex said, and only four ingredients are added to the Malagos chocolate: cacao liqueur, sugar, cocoa butter and soy lecithin. They also sell 100 percent pure chocolate where the cacao beans are simply roasted and ground to make the chocolate — no other ingredients are added.

The Davao region, Rex said, supplies about 80 percent of the country’s cocoa needs but the Philippines is still a big importer of chocolate, particularly the cocoa powder. The national government introduced inter-cropping to coconut farmers  because there is so much land in-between the trees which is perfect for cacao-growing. Many farmers have already adopted inter-cropping and thus have doubled the income from their land.

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And lastly, B&L met a young entrepreneur named Ryan Tan who is introducing a novel product to the local market—ready-to-bake cake in a jar.  His brand, Voila, has very good packaging, attractive and young, perfect for his market. Ryan comes from a family of entrepreneurs and businessmen and it didn’t come as a surprise that, immediately after college, he was in search of the perfect product that he could launch for the local market to mark his initiation as a young entrepreneur.

He launched his product during the last quarter of 2014 via a big bazaar and since then has joined about three or four food fairs. These instant cakes can now also be found in cafes, restaurants, etc.  His ready-to-bake cakes come in three flavors:  the chocolatey Belgian Fudge no. 5 which is their best seller; the Red Velvet Vanilla which is popular among children; and the Peanut Butter Mud Cakes that boast of crunchy peanuts and chewy chocolate.  These are instant cakes, no brainers for people who do not bake.  As Ryan explained, one simply has to add water to the jar, microwave for about four minutes (see instructions on the label), and Voila, you have ready to eat cake.

According to Ryan, he does not miss trade fairs like this and any DTI-sponsored show because aside from being professionally organized, this is where he can meet up with possible clients and distributors which he really needs now that his cake-in-a-jar is already taking off well.

The next time DTI or CITEM sponsors an event, mark it as a red-letter date on your calendar.  It is definitely worth a visit.

Mabuhay!!!  Be proud to be a Filipino.

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