by Prix D Banzon

Davao City (23 October) -- A Davao exporter of Cardava banana has penetrated the US market and shipped 20 tons of cardava that are npw sold in 500 Filipino-owned supermarkets in the US.

Ferdinand Maranon, owner of Sagrex Foods Inc. said that his company aside from exporting the banana is also into growing the variety of Cardava banana.

Maranon said they export frozen ripe Cardava banana, frozen banana fries and turon (ripe banana glazed with sugar).

He also revealed that although they are still introducing the product in the foreign market, the frozen products are also being introduced in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Korea, even as he said that they have a distributor in HongKong where it move the product to China and other neighboring countries.

Maranon meanwhile said that to sustain their supply, their company is also into growing the giant Cardava, the variety they propagate because it has about 16 to 18 hands, the ordinary variety only has only about seven to eight.

He said the variety is propagated through tissue culture which they sell at P18 per seedling and plantable.

Right now he said they are into contract growing in an area of 300 hectares that could produce the supply that is commensurate to their plant capacity.

"Our production level now is 500 kilos per hour," he said.

Ha said they plan to increase their production next year that is why they are also increasing their production area to 600 hectares, he said.