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 kaming matulungan at gabayan para maipagpatuloy po ang aming nasimulang cacao chocolate bar business,” she mentioned.#
