Ducky Paredes

 

 

“The Agri-Freeze solution can preserve the quality of the aquatic products for up to a whole year without any weight or quality loss.”

by Ducky Paredes

Senator Chiz Escudero certainly surprised everyone.  We expected that he would announce that he was throwing his hat in the presidential derby as the candidate of the Nationalist People’s Coalition. Instead, he announced that he was leaving the NPC. He had no good words for his former party mates and the NPC leaders while broadly hinting that he refused dictation from his party’s leaders.

What is he up to? What will Chiz do next? I really have no idea but suspect that his plans will disappoint many of the young idealists (and the naïve Magdalo soldier-politicos who earlier endorsed his candidacy) who thought the world of him. I have never been a Chiz admirer and always knew that– like many of the old politicians – Chiz only cared for himself. Period.

We shall see what we shall see.

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The lone business with its main headquarters in the heart of Paco, Manila, multi-national giant Unilever, Philippines was among the hardest hit by the floods.

The Unilever main office and factories straddle two tributaries of the Pasig River. For the first time in its 83-year existence, floodwaters engulfed its compound. Nothing was spared as water rose to unprecedented levels that immediately drenched the first floor areas of its buildings. While on the other side of town – in Manggahan, Pasig – the home to its Selecta brand, was also as heavily flooded.

The first thing that Unilever did, through its chairman, was to account for every employee. A phone brigade made sure that each and every employee was out of harm’s way. If anyone needed help, then, help was given. A total of 500 employees – almost half of the total workforce — were affected by flooding.

With offices shut down for a week due to rehabilitation work, the unaffected employees and those who comprise the Integrated League of Unilever Volunteers or “InLuv” trooped to the Unilever warehouse in Las Pinas City and began a relief operation drive. They put together 20,000 relief packs — P10M worth of rice, sardines and various Unilever home and personal care and food products. These were immediately turned over to nearby affected communities in Manila, Pasig, Pasay and Laguna in coordination with the DSWD and local government units. A Knorr “Sopas ng Pag-Asa” or Soup Kitchen was also brought to evacuation centers in Ultra and Rosario Sports Complex.

No need to ask why Unilever is a company I admire.

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            Among the radio programs I admire is one hosted by a former station-mate, Angelo Palmones “Bago Yan Ah” over station dzMM. He always has interesting things to report.

Recently, he had a guest – Hernie Decena – talk on an invention. The Agri-Freeze solution can preserve the quality of the aquatic products for up to a whole year without any weight or quality loss, by coating the aquatic product with a thin film during freezing.

While the technology has been used in other countries such as India and the United States, brine immersion freezing (BIF), Decena described during the radio program as a “revolutionary method” in preserving aquatic products, meat, fruits and non-leafy vegetables using super-conductive liquid instant freeze.

Liquid instant freeze allows instant freezing, which, as a result, eliminates crystallization, thus preserving the freshness, flavor and texture of the frozen product.

Decena said that products like fish and meat, if properly processed using BIF, can be stored for two to three days in Styrofoam boxes without using ice. When stored inside freezers or chillers after the BIF freezing, they can last up to six months. A superb feature of this technology is that the quality of the BIF-frozen fish stays the same after two to three days, so that it tastes as fresh or as good as newly caught fish when grilled or cooked any other way.

Under the old conventional freezing method, ice is used to preserve fish and other perishable food items, which leads to crystallization that alters the quality and freshness of the frozen product. Hence, the marked difference in the texture and taste of newly caught fish from those that had been stored in the freezer or in ice-packed Styrofoam boxes.

            Moreover, it takes as little as 3 to 30 minutes (depending on type, size and volume of product to be processed) to freeze a product using BIF, compared to the conventional method, which takes 3-4 hours to freeze a product using the air blast system.

            Decena has improved on the BIF technology by creating a BIF freezer, that has a wheeled stand, is only as small as a chest-type refrigerator, thus making it easy to transport and move around and plug into any available electrical outlet.

            The BIF freezer is as easy to use as a microwave oven. You just wait to reach the ideal freezing temperature of between minus-30 degrees and minus-40 degrees, and that’s when you start to freeze the fish, meat, fruits or non-leafy vegetables.

            The closest thing to the BIF is the Individual Quick Freeze technology, currently the most popular means in instant-freeze refrigeration. About 500 kilos of products can be frozen within 20-60 minutes using instant quick freeze, with a power consumption of 500kw per ton.

            BIF, on the other hand, uses only 120kw per ton. It will freeze 500 kilos of produce in three to fifteen minutes, and requires just 4 people to operate, and only 40 square meters of floor space.  The Individual Quick Freeze method needs 10 persons and 150 square meters of space (more than the size of a typical house in a low-cost or socialized housing project).

            Another advantage is its very low-freezing temperature. No bacteria or microorganism can survive minus 30 to minus 40 degrees Celsius. This ultra low-freezing temperature also creates less damage on the meat. Consequently, the substances in the cell are almost unchanged, so the taste, aroma and texture stays the same as fresh as before freezing.

            This new technology is safe and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has approved the agri-freeze solution through its Microbiological Method of Bacteriological Analysis system. It has also passed the University of the Philippines (UP) Pharmacology and Toxicology test.

            With BIF, we can freeze farm produce at the source of harvest, and preserve freshness and quality for as long as six months when kept in freezer at a temperature of minus 18 degrees.  Highly perishable products like fish can be transported for 24 to 72 hours without ice.

            According to Angelo Palmones, this new technology will be on display this November during the convention and seminar-exhibit of the Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineers at the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City.

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hvp 10.29.09

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