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Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Davao Norte town promotes 'tablea' during ATF
SAMAL, Davao del Norte -- San Isidro Mayor Tomas Abelita is blowing aflame a heap of heated charcoal briquettes to bring to boil his town's hot chocolate drink now labeled in local market as "Chocolate de San Isidro."
"We dream of having a chocolate factory in San Isidro," he said.
Abelita was one of the local executives who brushed arms with ATF delegates in a dinner hosted Sunday by the province of Davao del Norte at a Malipano Island resort just across Pearl Farm Beach Resort in the Island Garden City of Samal.
Together with his staff, he offered visitors a cup of hot Chocolate de San Isidro, hoping that foreign investors would get interested in buying his town's cacao beans or its processed raw chocolate chunks locally known as "tablea."
But Abelita had other options for investors.
He wanted them to build a chocolate factory in his town, which he said could readily supply needed volume of cacao beans.
"This would create more jobs for our people," said Abelita.
Declared as a municipality on June 27, 2004, San Isidro staged in its first year anniversary last year the largest "tablea" ever made in the country.
It has then positioned itself as the "Chocolate Hub" of Davao del Norte aside from being a cavers' paradise having been naturally endowed with spectacular caves.
It has also identified cacao as its competitive product, to the One-Town One-Product program designed to promote entrepreneurship and create jobs.
San Isidro now has 3,600 hectares of cacao trees, yielding an estimated 3,600 metric tons of cacao beans per hectare every year, San Isidro investment promotion officer Sonio Sanchez said.
Encouraging to plant more cacao trees, the local government of San Isidro is distributing free cacao seedlings especially in areas covered by the European funded Upland Development Program (UDP).
Abelita disclosed that UDP is helping San Isidro farmers particularly in barangays Dakudao and Mamangan to organically grow cacao so they will be yielding high quality cacao beans.
"That makes out chocolate' of premium taste. Its pure and organic," Sanchez said.
He said the Department of Trade and Industry is extending product development assistance to San Isidro so its chocolate drinks fare well in market competition.
San Isidro offers a drink-taste of Chocolate' de San Isidro and sells raw chocolate chunks or "tablea" at the Mindanao Trade Expo staged as SM City Entertainment Plaza in Davao City.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (January 18, 2006 issue)
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