Food processing plant to rise in Davao

YOVEL Agri Enterprise, in partnership with a Japanese company, is set to establish a fruits and vegetables puree plant in Davao City by March 2018.

During the tourism and investment roadshow attended by Davao City local government unit (LGU) representatives and private sectors from October 17 to 22 held at the different cities in Japan, Yovel Agri Enterprise signed the memorandum of understanding with Bioactive Japan to establish a puree plant in the city.

According to Yovel Agri Enterprise president and CEO James Amparo, the partnership took a year and a half of negotiation before they are able to come to finality. He added this partnership will answer the slow growth of the agriculture sector of the region.

Bioactive Japan is a natural food processing company that has been known to supply to different countries as well as sourcing out raw materials from other countries as well. They process these raw materials into food and medicines.

Amparo said the Japanese company also has a 20,000-acre of property in India which is also into food processing as well.

Currently, research study is still ongoing and is target to finish March next year. Amparo said they are still looking for a land area perfect for their plant and which would just accessible with the local farmers. The ideal farm area that they are looking for is around 5,000 square meters to a hectare and will house both a processing plant and a warehouse.

When asked why Yovel Agri Enterprise, which is Luzon-based, has chosen to expand in Davao City, Amparo said he had been very comfortable with the city’s peace and order situation, on top of it being a good source of raw materials.

“Davao Region is really a fruit basket of the Philippines. In terms of expansion, there are a lot of potential, not just in Davao but also in neighboring areas including Region 10 and Region 12. Davao is very accessible. And also, the city having a port is also another thing,” said Amparo.

They are looking forward for production of banana, pineapple, papaya, durian, mangosteen, and marang puree among others. Yovel Agri Enterprise also eyes strawberry puree as one of their products, and to source out strawberries from Marilog and Buda.

Being a fruit basket of the country, Amparo said local farmers are often faced with the dilemma of where to put extra fruit supply – especially those that can no longer be absorbed by the market. Some of this, according to Amparo, just go to waste.

“If we want to compete internationally, we have to have a processing plant,” said Amparo adding their partnership guarantees export trade relations with Japan as well. They also eye export to the United States and other countries in the Middle East.

Aside from establishing a processing plant, they also are planning to train partner-farmers to help them with better systematic long-term approach in addressing agricultural problems.

“We plan to have a partnership with the farmers. Japanese consumers are very particular with quality. They don’t want too much usage of chemicals. That’s one of the things that they’ve been planning to address, that we will really have a direct partnership with the farmers and to train them how to convert their crops and lot in such a way of good agricultural practices and moving forward to organic farming. So that is what we’re going to do without compromising their harvests,” said Amparo.

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