CLARK FREEPORT – Americans and food-homesick Filipinos will finally have within their reach Philippine bananas, as the first ever shipment of the highland Cavendish harvested in Bukidnon is ready to be sold in Los Angeles markets, the Philippine embassy in Washington DC announced yesterday.
“The bananas, which arrived in the US last Sept. 9, have been transferred to a ripening warehouse and will be available in local stores in the Los Angeles area this week,” said an email sent to Punto by Philippine embassy spokesperson Consul Elmer Cato.
Agriculture attaché Dr. Josyline Javelosa said “the arrival of the shipment which is the first of an estimated 3,000 metric tons that the US hopes to import from the Philippines this year, came almost eight years after the Philippines first requested market access for its bananas.”
Philippine ambassador to the US Jose Cuisia said “with arrival of maiden shipment of 7.047 metric tons of highland bananas at the Port of Long Beach near Los Angeles, the Philippines has earned the distinction of being the first Asian country to export bananas to the US.”
“With this shipment, we are hopeful that Philippine bananas would be able to fi nd and satisfy a chance in the competitive US banana market.
We also hope that this is the beginning of increased access of Philippine bananas in North America,” Cuisia said. Javelosa noted that “Philippine bananas are among the best in the world and there is opportunity to bring in the unique and special banana varieties like lakatan and latondan which Filipinos in the US have long been craving for and which Americans can learn to love.”
The highland bananas, which will be marketed in the US will be under the Sweetio brand, were exported by Dole Philippines to Dole Food Company Inc. and were shipped from the Mindanao Container Terminal l in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental on Aug. 20 Javelosa witnessed the transfer of the bananas to a ripening warehouse from where they would be brought to stores this week.
The transfer was also witnessed by Consul General Hellen Barber de la Vega and Trade Respresentative Jose Dinday. Javelosa said Philippine bananas are also set to be exported to Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Korea, China, Singapore, the Middle East, Canada, Russia and Indonesia.
She expressed the gratitude of the Department of Agriculture and the Philippine embassy to the officials of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the US Department of Agriculture “for working closely with the Bureau of Plant Industry to ensure that the banana exports met US phytosanitary requirements.”
Javelosa expressed hope that the new market for Philippine bananas “can further help propel growth of the Philippine banana industry, especially in Mindanao, which is still recovering from the damage wrought by recent typhoons on the banana plantations there.”
