Hornilla’s Choconuts, tablea chocolate bar producer in Batangas
City, received a training on tablea chocolate products and process standardization with awareness-seminar on Basic Food Hygiene (BFH) from the
Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-Batangas held at Daffodil
Street, Potenciana Village, Pallocan West, Batangas City, last April 11.
The activity covered discussions on the science of chocolates which
focused on (1) dried cacao beans production, (2) biochemical profile of cacao and ingredients of seeds, (3) biochemical quality parameters, (4) tablea
/ bean to bar production steps, (5) process flow of traditional and refined
tablea, (6) chocolate processing
equipment, and (7) cocoa butter.
An Awareness-Seminar on Basic
Food Hygiene was also conducted
to strengthen their food safety implementation and ensure that the
chocolate products they produce
conform to standards. Mr. Romel M.
Felismino, University Researcher II
of the Institute of Food Science and
Technology – University of the Philippines Los Baños (IFST-UPLB), facilitated the training.
Hornilla’s Choconuts is
owned by Ms. Sarah Hornilla who
started venturing into cacao processing after she joined a benchmarking activity at Malagos Chocolate Facility, Agdao, Davao
City in 2014. She was
inspired by how the owners of Malagos Chocolate
championed their chocolate business so she converted her multi-crop farm
in Batangas City into a
cacao farm and processed
her cacao harvests into
cacao tablea and chocolate bars. According to Ms.
Hornilla, she acquired her
knowledge of producing
cacao chocolate bars from
watching tutorial videos
on Youtube, a reason why
she sought DOST’s technical assistance.
Ms. Hornilla recognized the inaccuracies
in their current production
process, from cacao harvesting to chocolate bar
processing. Mr. Felismino
address all these inaccuracies and helped the firm
standardize their existing
cacao beans fermentation
and drying processes.
Ms. Hornilla
thanked DOST-Batangas
and IFST-UPLB for the
technical assistance they
received. “Ako po ay lubos
na nagpapasalamat sa
inyo dahil nakarating po
kayo dito sa amin at napakadami ko pong natutunan
mula sa ating speaker
mula sa UPLB. Sana po
ay patuloy n’yo pa po ka
ming matulungan at gabayan para maipagpatuloy
po ang aming nasimulang
cacao chocolate bar business,” she mentioned.
Note to editors:
DOST-CALABARZON is
one of the regional offices
of the Department of Science and Technology and
is located at Jamboree
Road, Brgy. Timugan, Los
Baños, Laguna. For more
information, you may visit
us on Facebook at facebook.com/dostcalabarzon
or website www.region4a.
dost.gov.ph. You may also
reach us at parcu@ro4a.
dost.gov.ph.
