Seafood Processing Plant reopens
MEN and women clad in white coats and transparent plastic caps are back at work at the Dagupan Seafood Processing Plant since May 14 after the facility was closed on October 7, 2011.
Under the supervision of a food technologist from the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), the processing plant finally resumed operations with an initial 20 tons of milkfish for processing sourced from fishponds in Dagupan and other parts of Pangasinan.
Fidel Espinoza, designated spokesman of the processing plant, said the food technologist from KOICA is closely supervising the compliance of operations to the established protocols to ensure that fish processing in the plant funded by her government would meet international standards.
One such discipline is to strictly require everyone including the facility’s clients, exporters of processed fish, to don sterilized clothing provided by the plant and go through to the dry air bath cubicle when visiting the worksite.
Dr. Westly Rosario, chief of the National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development Center (NIFTDC) and interim plant manager, said aside from the KOICA appointee, representatives from the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD), Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources central office and the Dagupan City health office are also monitoring the operations.
The presence of BFAD and Dagupan City Health Office representatives is necessary since it is they who have to certify that the plant is meeting set standards.
Rosario said that if the plant could pass the BFAD standard, it will then apply for accreditation for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) standard from world- accrediting bodies.
With HACCP standard, all products coming from the plant have easier access to markets in the U.S. and Europe.
CURRENT GOAL
The current goal is to produce 15 tons of processed fish from the 20 tons brought in by exporter John Maramba of Dagupan City.
Maramba has visited the plant accompanied by a representative of the company importing his product to observe the processing.
Rosario said the importer’s representative was satisfied with the hygienic standards adopted by the plant and promised to come back once every two months to buy more processed fish to be shipped to Canada.
Rosario said at least 60 workers originally trained by his office as deboners, all from Sitio Korea, Bonuan Binloc, and 30 other certified deboners from elsewhere in the city have been hired.
The workers are paid P3 for every fish deboned.
Rosario said the first batch of finished products processed last May 14 consisted of five tons of deboned unseasoned fish, while the second batch processed on May 15 consisted of five tons of deboned marinated fish.
Processed were 750 grams-milkfish sourced from western Pangasinan.
Being processed last Thursday were “baby bangus”, medium-sized milkfish that are in great demand in the United States.
The “baby bangus” came from the fishponds in Pugaro, Dagupan City
The processing plant, built from a P100 million grant from the Korean government, is the most modern of its kind in the Philippines today.
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