The Philippine Trade and Investment Centre continues to find ways to bring more Filipino food products to Australia. Consul Commercial Alma Argayoso said they aim to provide Filipino community with the tastes from home that they longed for and to introduce our local favourites to the Australian market.
Giant Australian supermarket and retail chain, Woolworths is now offering limited selection of Philippine products such as noodles, canned goods, snacks and condiments.
“Philippine products in mainstream supermarket has been there since 2018. But know it grew to about 60 stores and we look forward to more stores included up to 150 stores across Australia.”
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But Alma believes that mom and pop stores has their unique offerings and loyal consumers from the community.
“Competition is very good in such a way that we are forced to really improve our products and services. We just wanted to broaden the options for our consumers."
"They also have different timing. The small mom and pop shops closes at 6pm while big supermarkets closes until midnight. It's good for those who are doing late night shopping. I think they are still able to go to Filipino shops to buy a wider range of products.”
Philippine fruits
In the beginning of March, the Philippines has exported its first frozen durian products from Davao City to Australia.
Apart from Durian fruit, there is a trade opportunity for Philippine fresh mangoes to export to Australia according to Ms Alma.
Mangoes from the Philippines have passed Australia’s strict phytosanitary and quarantine measures. Manila has subsequently signed a trade agreement with Canberra for the export of Philippine mango varieties to Australia in 2016.
The amended Specific Commodity Understanding (SCU) builds on an agreement signed in 2013, which granted access for mangoes from Guimaras, Samal Islands and Davao del Sur.
“We already have the dried mangoes here but we really would like to have the fresh mangoes. We’ve been working on that for the last couple of years however there were still challenges in shipping Philippine mangoes to Australia because of the expensive air freight cost. But we are doing our best to bring our mangoes here."
