BUGUEY, Cagayan – With the reported shortage of flour that is used in making bread, fisherfolk in this northern Cagayan town appear to have a possible solution to the Filipinos’ favorite yet shrinking breakfast fare: seaweed pan de sal.
This is one of the possible byproducts that experts from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) are now discovering in partnership with the Rural Improvement Club (RIC), whose members are mostly fisherfolk of Buguey town, some 130 km north of the regional capital, Tuguegarao City.
BFAR said that pan de sal may be made from seaweed, particularly the Gracillaria species, locally known in the Iluko term as ur-urmut, which abounds here and in the Ilocos region.
According to BFAR Regional Director Jovita Ayson, this may be done through the extraction from the seaweed of the byproduct agar, popularly known as gulaman or gelatin.
BFAR experts have taught RIC members on the extraction process in recent trainings held here.
Upon extraction, the technicians said the agar or gulaman may be mixed with flour and baked into seaweed pan de sal or combined with other products.
According to Jessie Gaspar, head of the BFAR station here, the seaweed that residents regularly harvest are now valued even more after their training in agar processing.
“Dried seaweeds from (here) are exported all the way to Bulacan. This technology shall enable our RIC members to have more income from seaweeds instead of just selling it in fresh or dried form,” Gaspar said.
One of the trainors, Dr. Lorna Pimentel, head of the BFAR central office’s fish processing section, said agar is in demand worldwide for use in food, pharmaceutical and industrial applications.
Aside from pan de sal, she said, studies are also being made to expand the use of seaweed as a major ingredient in popular food products.
“Soon to be out are seaweed pan de sal, seaweed lychee, and seaweed maja blanca,” she said.
Meanwhile, plans are in the works for a village-level seaweed processing plant in Barangay Minanga here to enable RIC members to profit economically from the additional knowledge and training they received from the BFAR experts.
The plants would process the ur-urmot into agar or gulaman bars which may later be sold wholesale or retail in supermarkets and groceries in urban areas.
Ayson also said they are introducing ur-urmot production in other coastal areas of the province to increase their economic benefits from its production and processing as well as to promote their nutritional value as seaweed are known to be rich in iodine.