Tilanggit, anyone?

There’s a promising venture emerging out of the tilapia industry.

It’s the making of tilanggit or tilapia juvenile processed into value-added product similar to deboned danggit (rabbitfish, a marine fish popular in its dried form in the Visayas).

Tilanggit is a term coined from tilapia and danggit. Tilapiang dinaggit means tilapia prepared similar to deboned and dried danggit.

Credit for the technology goes to Vilma Joson of the Kababaihang Masigla ng Nueva Ecija.

For purposes of tilanggit production, the tilapia can be harvested when they are still at least 10 grams (45 to 60-days old), said the Los Baños-based Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development (PCAMRD).

The tilapia juvenile is split open, deboned, and dried up to at least five percent moisture content under the sun or in an improvised solar drier for at least three days until the pieces are brittle.

In recent years, tilanggit has become a viable option owing to low market price of fresh tilapia and high cost of production in some places.

In view of this, PCAMRD has launched a training program on tilanggit making to provide livelihood opportunities for entrepreneurs as well as out-of-school youths, housewives, and unemployed people. The program aims also to encourage tilapia growers and fish processors to venture into tilanggit production as a new processed fish product for the local market.

The program’s most recent beneficiaries were teachers, government employees, and small-scale businessmen in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Ilocos Norte, and Bohol.

Resource speakers were Dr. Dolly Fernandez of PCAMRD and Natividad Efondo of the DA-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resource-Freshwater Fisheries Resesarch Station (DA-BFAR-FFRS) in Los Baños, Laguna.

The participants committed to share the knowledge they acquired on tilanggit production to co-teachers, students, out-of-school youths, housewives, and others. — Rudy A. Fernandez