Philrice, private firm to develop rice winery eqpm’t

PhilRice and an industrial company entered into a joint project to develop a rice winery equipment that will support the product’s wide-scale commercialization.

Amertech Industrial Ventures, an industrial company that specializes in machinery and equipment fabrication and installation, steam generation and utilization, agreed to develop a rice winery equipment for the commercial production of the PhilRice tapuy through a joint venture agreement.

To be installed this year at the old crop protection building of PhilRice Central Experiment Station in Nueva Ecija, the equipment is expected to fastrack the wine-making process, which involves cooking, cooling, harvesting/pressing, filtration, pasteurization, and blending. Amertech started fabricating the equipment in July and it will be tested from September 2005 to February 2006.

Amounting to about P2 million, the equipment has several components, namely: rice hull feed boiler, kettle, cooked rice cooler, filter press, fermented rice presser, and pasteurization and mixing vats.

PhilRice’s Rice Chemistry and Food Science Division that handles the rice wine production said the product’s release in the market takes time as the processing is currently done manually.

With the fabrication of the rice winery equipment, researchers are hopeful that the PhilRice tapuy will soon be made available to all interested buyers. — Philrice