DTI eyes ‘baseline’ recipes for adobo

MANILA, Philippines — Amid a firestorm of protest, the Department of Trade and Industry will be moving to promote “baseline” guides rather than “standardized” recipes for traditional Filipino dishes such as adobo, according to Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez.

“People are free to do what they want with this baseline recipe. We are not about to interfere in their styles,” Lopez told The STAR over the weekend, emphasizing that the baseline traditional recipe would serve merely as a guide and is not mandatory.

He said the DTI’s move to set up a technical committee to establish baseline traditional recipes for Filipino dishes like adobo is meant to serve as a guide as it seeks to promote more creative exports as part of recovery efforts from the pandemic.

“As we now all help to fight the pandemic, we all need to continue to find ways to create more economic activities to create more jobs or recover jobs back. This is part of our economic recovery efforts to develop more creative industry exports and own our brand of Philippine cuisines for international promotion,” he pointed out.

Lopez said forming the technical committee is DTI’s way of helping out in having a baseline traditional recipe for the promotion of Philippine cuisines abroad, noting that other countries which promoted their local dishes have also experienced difficulties when there was no baseline guide even on ingredients.

As Philippine cuisines are promoted overseas, he said local ingredients or farmers’ produce and food products would also be marketed with the help of several micro, small and medium enterprises that have already expressed interest in the program.

“This is not the expertise of DTI. The DTI is tasked to manage the process of consultations. So, DTI is working with different agencies and with known and respected experts in this field—the chefs and foodies,” he pointed out. “We actually owe them now an apology because their good names were dragged into this, and this is something they didn’t have to do. They are sharing their expertise pro bono. They are doing this for the country. Voluntarily. In fact, there is no budget allocated to this process of consultations.”

The committee is headed by chef Glenda Barretto, founder of Via Mare Corp. as chairperson, as well as chef Myrna Segismundo and chef Raoul Roberto Goco from Food Writers Association of the Philippines and the Hotel and Restaurant Association of the Philippines, respectively as vice chairpersons.

Other members of the committee are representatives from the University of the Philippines Diliman - College of Home Economics, Philippine Chamber of Food Manufacturers, Philippine Association of Meat Processors, Department of Science and Technology - Industrial Technology Development Institute, Philippine Association of Food Technologists, LTB Chefs Association, Asia Society Philippines, National Commission for Culture and the Arts and Philippine Daily Inquirer.