News

01/26/2017

Process Streamlining of the Algae Industry in the Philippines and Aztec Foodgrowers Corporation

By: Christian Joseph C. Ronquillo, Meara Carys P. Toleran

 

In the launching of the Algae Bio-Innovation Global Hub (Algae BIG Hub) last September 2016 in De La Salle University (DLSU) – Manila, a Spirulina product company named Aztec Foodgrowers Corporation (AFC) was introduced as one of the project’s local collaborators. With the help of a research project entitled “Process Streamlining of the Algae Industry in the Philippines”, the joint venture of Dr. Alvin Culaba, DLSU Professor and Algae BIG Hub Principal Founder, and Engr. Napoleon Puente, President of the AFC and Algae BIG Hub Charter Member, aims to solve the bottleneck of the AFC in refining their production process.

An ocular plant visit was conducted by Dr. Alvin Culaba and the project team last October 2016. The team was introduced to the cultivation process of the AFC. Some concerns were also raised on the potential problems on the cultivation and drying processes. Both parties managed to finalize the roles of their partnership. Come December 2016, Dr. Aristotle Ubando, DLSU Professor and Algae BIG Hub Chief Technology Officer, presented updates on the ongoing research investigation. Moreover, the team conducted a step-by-step observation of the procedure in the AFC’s harvesting and drying process of Spirulina to help them understand the details of their production.

As the research project slowly reaches its mid duration of the grants, many challenges was discovered and developed in order to succeed with the solution of the bottlenecks of the collaborators. Workshops and seminars were created to nurture the knowledge and experience for each members of the organization. With these, the organization will develop a strong bonds with each other and can spread the knowledge to the algae industry sector.