Food companies encouraged to invest in product, packaging innovation

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), through the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM), is promoting product and packaging innovation among local food companies to boost their competitiveness.

Related to this, CITEM launched the 2011 Trendy Award Competition to search for innovations in content and packaging of new food products and applications. The search also includes products that exemplify successful adaptation to consumer lifestyle and preferences as well as readiness for local and international market requirements.

“The Trendy Award will encourage food manufacturers to develop new product concepts and packaging solutions that cater to the demands of the global market. The increasingly competitive economic environment challenges us to continually expand and update our range of products to meet and anticipate our clients’ needs,” said Rosvi C. Gaetos, Executive Director of CITEM.

The competition is a component of the 8^th International Food Exhibition (IFEX) Philippines, the largest and most comprehensive food event in the country. IFEX is slated on May 12-14 at the SMX Convention Center.

The Trendy Award competition, conceptualized in 2000, is jointly initiated by CITEM and Chef Nancy Reyes-Lumen, editor in chief of Cook Magazine, one of the leading culinary publications in the country.

“[We started Trendy] at a time when there was much excitement about new products being developed for export — the sense of globalization was brewing and I was seeing that [the country has] the potential to beat our Asian competitors if we only knew how to package right,” said Lumen.

Past Trendy awardees include Via Mare (2000’s laing can foil container), Bote Central (2005’s coffee alamid), Orient Foods Corporation (2008’s chewy fruit bar), and Anjo’s Farm (2009’s Global Citation for microwavable bangus or milkfish), to name a few.

“The Trendy award gave us credibility as a company, [and] posed more challenges for us to come up with better products. It’s an award to be proud of,” said Vie Reyes, proprietor of Bote Central, 1st place winner of the 2005 Trendy award for coffee alamid or civet coffee.

”I want to see reinvented, renewed, redesigned, yet artisanal, traditionally appealing food products. I want to see an integrated design that shows me someone young consulted with someone traditional and they came up with something [world-class],” said Lumen.

For more information on the 2011 Trendy Award Competition, visit www.ifexphilippines.com.