Sixteen top Philippine food manufacturers will headline the Philippine delegation that will showcase their products at Food Taipei, the Taipei International Food Show to be held from June 21 to 24, at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center.

Organized by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (Taitra) and considered as one of Asia’s leading food shows, the show will coincide with five events and over 1,500 exhibiting companies. 

The Food Philippines exhibition is part of the efforts of the Department of Trade and Industry, through the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (DTI-Citem), to strengthen the position of the Philippines as a leading source of premium, natural, healthy and ready-to-eat processed food and beverages in the Taiwan food market.  

Exhibitors will be representing the Philippines’s premium products, such as coconut, banana, cacao, tuna and other healthy food products. Tagged as one of Asia’s “Four Tigers”, Taiwan has a vibrant economy and is considered one of the richest in Asia. 

“Our aim is to increase the market share of Philippine food exports to Taiwan by achieving at least $22 million worth of export sales. For the longest time, Taiwan has been increasingly reliant on food and agricultural imports due to the country’s limited arable land and agricultural production. This factor enhances the market opportunities for the Philippines, to penetrate the Taiwan food market,” Citem Executive Director Clayton Tugonon said. 

The exhibitor team is composed of manufacturers and exporters of products from the southern regions, focusing on a mix of fresh and processed healthy and natural products, halal, ready-to-eat food and industrial ingredients. 

Exhibitors include Raw Brown Sugar Milling Co. Inc. for organic muscovado sugar; ProSource International Inc. for virgin coconut oil (VCO), nectar and amino; Pasciolco Agri-Ventures for VCO, coco sugar, coco jam and coco-sap vinegar; Malagos Agri-Ventures Corp. for unsweetened chocolate, roastedcacao nibs and dark chocolate; Fitrite Inc. for fruit juices, noodles, mixes and bagoong; Year Luck Food and Industrial Corp. for soft-serve ice cream powder and ice-cream cones, waffles and wafers.

Also participating are Tropicana Food Products Inc. with their VCO; CJ Uniworld Corp. for banana chips; Celebes Canning Corp. for canned, pouched and frozen tuna; DMI Medical Supply’s Food Division for the MX3 food supplement, MX3 coffee and MX3 tea, which uses xanthone from mangosteen; and JNRM Corp. with native pre-mixed delicacies and flavour syrups.

JNRM Corp. will bring their pre-mixed products of Philippine home-grown delicacies, such as kutsinta, bibingka, espasol, ube halaya, sapin-sapin and maja blanca.

The DTI-Citem also partnered with the DTI-Export Marketing Bureau (DTI-EMB) to feature in the Taiwan food fair the export-ready products of companies under the Regional Interactive Platform for Philippine Exporters (Ripples) Plus Program. Participating under the Ripples Plus Program are Mama Tina Pasta with their noodles, pasta and canned meat; Green Life Coconut Products Philippines Inc. with their coconut butter, organic coconut cider vinegar and organic coconut spirit; Team Asia Corp. with their coconut oil, VCO and other coconut-related products; and Weambard International Traders Inc. with their canned fruit products in light syrup, mango slices, mango bits with nata de coco bits, banana (whole saba) mango puree with sago and young coconut (buko) strings.

The Department of Science and Technology-Industrial Technology Development Institute (DOST-ITDI) will also exhibit the products, made using the Philippines’s state-of-the-art food technologies and equipment.

The food-and-drinks sector is the fifth-largest industry in Taiwan and one of the market’s fastest-growing sectors. Attendees are expected to range from local supermarkets, hypermarkets and convenience stores, as these increase the range of imported foods to meet demand. 

The Food Taipei 2017 visitor profile includes importers, wholesalers, distributors, hotel owners and representatives, restaurant and bakery owners and online retailers from China, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the US and Singapore.

Philippine products to be exported to Taiwan must adhere to the requirements specified by Taiwan’s Food Safety and Sanitation Act, a new and improved food-safety system.  Products entering Taiwan must comply with their requirements for quality and package labeling. 

The retail sector and consumer food-service industry in Taiwan continue to emerge as lucrative markets for Philippine products, due to Taiwan’s busy lifestyle. Substantiating this is the rapidly expanding foodservice industry, forecast to reach sales of $21.6 billion by 2017 (AAFC, 2014). The Taiwan food industry poses an attractive destination for the high-quality products of Philippine manufacturers, suppliers and exporters.

FoodPhilippines is a branding initiative of Citem, the DTI’s export promotion arm. It unifies the efforts of the government to promote the Philippines as a source of quality food products in the global market.

The FoodPhilippines Pavilion will be located at Nangang Exhibition Hall and TWTC Hall 1 of the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Taipei, Taiwan. This participation in the Food Taipei 2017 is organized by the DTI, through the Citem, in cooperation with its EMB, DOST-ITDI, the Manila Economic and Cultural Office  and the Philippine Trade and Investment Center in Taiwan. This participation is one of DTI’s major efforts to intensify the promotion of Philippine specialty food products in overseas trade shows.