Nueva Ecija LGU, Korean firm to put up P30-M mango facility
By Manny Galvez (The Philippine Star)
Updated August 21, 2011 12:00 AM
PALAYAN CITY ,Philippines – The provincial government is eyeing a partnership with a Korean food processing company for a P30-million mango processing plant in Nueva Ecija in line with its goal of turning the province into a food basket in Luzon.
Gov. Aurelio Umali said the province is fine-tuning a joint venture with Drupe International Inc. for a 1,000-square meter mango processing facility in the province.
Umali said the partnership, which is in line with the public private partnership scheme, will harness the province’s potentials as a major mango-producing area.
The province ranks first in Luzon in terms of mango production with vast tracts of mango plantations in this town and in the municipalities of Gen. Tinio, Jaen and Talavera.
“With this partnership with Drupe, we expect mango production in Nueva Ecija – already tops in Luzon – to further increase and pump-prime the agricultural economy of the province as the undisputed food basket in the country,” he said.
Board member Romanito Juatco, who will manage the plant, said that during peak harvest Nueva Ecija produces 62 million kilos of mango of which 58 percent is exported to Cebu.
He said the governor wants the province to process its own mango products.
Drupe has a 2,000-square meter plant inside the Philexcel Business Park at the Clark Freeport Zone.
The five-year-old firm, which started as Welsum Foodtech, Inc. on Jan. 25, 2006, is known as the first innovative company which developed and created a new market for frozen fruits on stick in the world.
Equipped with modern, hygienic production and quality control facility that conforms to international standards, Drupe has a capability to freeze fruits that maintain their freshness and sensory properties up to two years.
Cryogenic freezing is an advanced form of blast freezing in which individual food products are exposed to sprays of liquid nitrogen or carbon dioxide at a temperature of -196 degrees Celcius or colder.
This allows formation of small ice crystals inside the cell of the products, maintaining their freshness unlike slow freezing which can damage products because the process produces large crystals that pierce and damage cell walls.
Eui Kwon Chung of Drupe said the key benefits of the firm’s frozen products are that they offer cheap alternative to costly importation of ripe fruits, easy alternative to fresh fruits preparation, ensure off-season availability and in-season quality and offer fresh alternative to traditional food preservation methods.
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