THE coffee farmers in the town of Tuburan are planning to produce a 3-in-1 coffee variant to make the homegrown coffee brand, Tuburan Coffee, accessible to every household.
Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Cebu Director Tristan Abando, in an interview on Friday, disclosed that Tuburan has secured an additional seed money of P4 million from the DOST Central Office to aid in the expansion of facility, production, product development and marketing of Tuburan Coffee.
Abando said there is an ongoing product development at the Food Innovation Center (FIC) at the Cebu Technological University (CTU)-Tuburan campus for the production of Tuburan Coffee’s 3-in-1 variant.
Abando said the team expects the first prototype of the 3-in-1 coffee by December this year, which is still subject to evaluation.
The DOST Cebu official believes embarking on the 3-in-1 coffee concept would be beneficial for the brand to be known and be patronized globally, especially that a big population in Cebu isn’t accustomed to the idea of brewing coffee yet.
Still unaware
“For others, it’s time-consuming. For others, they don’t know how to do it. So to capture and make Cebuanos patronize our own, we would need to introduce the 3-in-1,” said Abando, adding that this would boost product awareness of the coffee brand.
The 3-in-1 coffee development is still being conceptualized.
According to the Philippine Coffee Board (PCB), coffee consumption in the country is rising and is now at 170,000 metric tons (MT) per year from only 75,000 MT in 2002.
However, the country’s production is only at 35,000 MT.
The FIC in CTU-Tuburan Campus offers services for food and processed food like product and process development, research and development, technology training and lectures, and packaging.
It was established to serve as a hub for innovation and research and development for value-adding fresh products and development of processed food.
Moreover, Abando said they are also looking at improving the look or packaging of the Tuburan coffee, which is now being sold in institutional markets like hotels, restaurants and coffee shops.
“We would now include the printing of nutrition facts, manufacturing and expiry dates and the barcode to prepare the product for retail,” he said.
More jobs are expected to be created if the product is welcomed by consumers. This would also open opportunities for other farmers in the province to seriously consider investing in coffee farms.
The coffee farm in Tuburan produces the Robusta variety.
Expansion
The coffee farmers were able to produce 128.18 kilograms of coffee beans from January to April this year. It generated sales of P102,490.
From a mere 500 hectares in nine barangays in Tuburan, Cebu, the farm has now spread to 2,850 hectares in 16 barangays of the town, providing livelihood to about a thousand coffee farmers.
In June this year, the Department of Trade and Industry turned over a shared service post-harvest facility worth P1.1 million to the town.
The facility was endorsed to the 252-member Kabangkalan Agro-Forestry Farmers Multi-purpose Cooperative.
The facility is composed of 10 bean solar driers, three coffee bean moisturizers and sorting table, which are necessary to maintain quality, ensure food safety and reduce losses between harvest and consumption in coffee production.
Consumption
Data from the Department of Agriculture showed that the Philippines imports from 75,000 MT to 100,000 MT of dried coffee beans from Vietnam and Indonesia annually at a cost of P7 billion to P10 billion.
Under the Philippine Coffee Roadmap, the country is expected to raise coffee production to 214,626 MT by 2022. This will bring the country’s coffee self-sufficiency level to 161 percent from the current 41.6 percent.
Vietnam is the highest exporter of green coffee beans to the Philippines. Filipinos are also the fifth-biggest consumers of coffee behind the European Union, the United States, Brazil and Japan. (S)