MANAOAG– Lito Arenas and wife Charito, both registered nurses, found another route to success: nursing mangoes.

The couple’s pickled and dried mango products, which have earned them the tag “mango magnate” of Pangasinan, are exported to other countries and their business continues to flourish.

They launched on Wednesday the mango dryer facilities and extended  hot water treatment (EHWT) provided by the Department of Agriculture as part of a program to boost the processed mango industry in the province as well as in Region 1 as a whole.

The launching was attended by Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, Governor Amado Espino Jr. and other local government officials.

Lito, who met his wife while they were attending nursing school at the Luzon Colleges (now University of Luzon) in Dagupan City in the 1970s, narrates that he took up the course because he was fascinated with the white uniform.

But mangoes have always been his interest, borne out of his exposure to an uncle who was a mango grower and trader.

In 1980, with a starting capital of P2,500, heventured into the mango business and slowly expanded through loans and help from the government.

Their products, packaged as Pangasinan Tropical Fruits, are sold locally in SM stores and the Duty Free Shops and exported to China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Brussels, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates.

Their plant’s production reaches up to 1,000 kilograms a day of pickled mangoes  and 10,000 kilograms a day of dried mangoes. The supply of raw mangoes in Pangasinan is sometimes not enough and so they source from other provinces.

CHINA MARKET

The additional facilities, particularly the EHWT, which will kill fruitfly eggs, is intended to comply with requirements that will allow them to export fresh mangoes in the huge Chinese market in Hong Kong and mainland China.

DAR provided a grant of P1.5 million, of which P500,000 was used to purchase plastic crates and P1 million to procure the two units of EHWT.

Another unit was given by the University of the Philippines-Postharvest Horticulture Training and Research Center. #

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