DAVAO CITY—Mindanao fruit processors are diversifying into non-traditional products, in order to expand their domestic and foreign market reach.
“The market is looking for good [alternative] fruit products, and processors are always on the lookout for buyers,” said Mar Marantan, general manager of Linkage Food Ventures Corporation, which recently shipped samples of its passion fruit juice products to potential buyers.
While Mindanao is now well-established as an exporter of fresh tropical fruit--mainly banana, pineapple and papaya--as well as banana chips and pineapple juice, a number of processors are venturing into “nontraditional” dried, pureéd and frozen fruit products.
In 2007, the island-region shipped out more than 24 MT of dried mango, papaya and pineapple valued at approximately US$1,150,000, to markets in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates, based on data compiled by USAID’s Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) Program.
In the same year, Mindanao also exported about 2,250 MT of mango and other fruit juices worth approximately US$1,261,580 to markets in the U.S., South Korea, Australia, Hongkong and Japan.
Linkage Food Ventures and other suppliers of both traditional and new fruit products will be attending the 1st Minfruit Market Encounter on July 31 to August 1, 2008 at the Green Heights Business and Convention Center, Diversion Road, Buhangin, Davao City.
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