Department of Agriculture makes push for Pinoy food in HK

COOKING. Filipino chef Margarita Fores, Asia's best female chef in 2016, poses with Filipino products and ingredients as Manila bids to introduce Filipino food in Hong Kong and the rest of the world.

THE Department of Agriculture is making a push to further promote Filipino food and agricultural products to Hong Kong and the rest of the world.

Filipino exhibitors, with the support of the DA, participated in the Natural & Organic Products Asia (NOPA) held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on Aug. 30 – Sept. 1.

Filipino chef Margarita Fores,  Asia’s Best Female Chef 2016, was also on hand for the DA’s “Kain Na (Let’s Eat)!”, which showcased the diversity and flavors of Filipino food, held on Aug. 31 at the House of Madison in Wan Chai.

“The department has been encouraging, as a matter of policy, the growth and development of organic products for a lot of reasons. One, because it is cheaper for our farmers to grow organic products, and, two, the organic products have a premium price, so technically, the margins will be better,” said Agricultural Counsellor Noel de Luna, who is based in the Philippine Embassy in Beijing.

He said that owing to Hong Kong’s proximity to the Philippines, it is a “natural market” for Filipino food products.

“The end goal here is to empower our farmers and it’s a growing phenomenon for Filipino farmers,” he said.

Twenty Filipino firms participated in the NOPA, consisting of those producing food, beverages, and/or wellness products.

“It’s hard to sell to a consolidator kasi the volumes are big so it’s easier for them to enter the market through local partners and to do that, they need to get in touch with distributors, the institutional distributors like the supermarkets here,” he said.

DA Undersecretary Berna Romulo-Puyat said it was time to be aggressive in promoting Filipino agricultural products to the global market. She added that she had been noticing a growing interest in Filipino ingredients and agricultural products.

“I noticed that Hong Kong chefs were interested in unique ingredients, which we have in our country, and we’re less than two hours away and Hong Kong is one of our major trading partners, so it’s logical for us to be here,” she said.

Meanwhile, Fores said she was excited to be the featured chef in the Filipino food festival, and to introduce Filipino ingredients to the global market.

“We’re happy that the DA is helping Filipino companies in the food and beverage industry to push and advocate for our cooking and our ingredients to be known globally,” she said.

As for Filipino cuisine, Fores said she would like to highlight its diversity.

“It is probably one of the most unique in the world because it’s made up of so many different cultures and different influences, where there’s a lot of Malay, Chinese, Spanish, Mexican, by way of the Galleon trade, and then American.

“So I think it’s the diversity of influences in our cuisine, in our cooking that makes it a very unique cuisine,” she said.

With this in mind, Fores is hoping to branch out of the Philippines and put up a restaurant overseas, and Hong Kong could just be the perfect location for it.

“Hong Kong is probably the easiest destination, the closest to us in the Philippines. And for me, it’s going full circle as well because in 1982 and 1983, I lived here and when I think about it, this is where I actually began to appreciate what eating well and what good food was all about. Hong Kong has always been a very international food destination,” Fores said.