DOST to establish multibillion-peso spice industry

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is set to establish a multibillion-peso granulated spice industry in the country, which is expected to benefit food processors and farmers producing onions, garlic and peppers.

Science Secretary Mario Montejo told The STAR that DOST’s Industrial Technology Development Institute has developed a process to manufacture granulated spices using idle food processing equipment of the institute inside the DOST compound in Bicutan, Taguig City.

He expressed optimism that the plan to establish a granulated spice industry will materialize and succeed.

“Before the end of the term of President Aquino, we think we will already have a granulated spices industry here,” he said in a recent interview.

Montejo said the local production of granulated spices would benefit local food processors who import granulated spices.

“The potential is in the billions of pesos. We currently import billions of pesos of granulated spices. We wondered, why do we have to import when we locally have the raw materials to produce granulated spices?” he added.

The initial target will be the local food processing industry.

“We have to do this in stages. First, we try to meet the demand for granulated spices by local food processors. After that, we can tap the export market,” Montejo said.

“This is what we are doing now in the DOST. We are going into process development. Developing processes to create products. In so doing, we also create new industries. This is real industrialization,” he added.

Farmers of onion, garlic and pepper are expected to benefit.

“Companies that will go into granulated spices production will be the large-scale buyers of their produce. Because this will drive up demand for their produce, they can also demand higher prices. It’s really win-win-win,” Montejo said.

The process the DOST developed to manufacture granulated spices could also be tweaked for the manufacture of other products.

“We’re just focusing first on granulated spice. But we’re already aware that the same process can also be used to manufacture other products,” Montejo said.