Benson Dakay, president of the Seaweed Industry Association of the Philippines (Siap), said the country is in the forefront of developing more applications for seaweeds and its processed version, carageenan.
“Cosmetics is one of the growth areas and demand for our products, especially in India, is high and growing,” Dakay said.
Carageenan is a food ingredient and is widely used as a binder, emulsifier, stabilizer, gelling agent and extender of processed meat and dairy products, confectioneries, beer and pet food. It is mostly found in hams, toothpastes and chocolate drinks.
Dakay said the threat of other countries copying Philippine-developed applications is still very present.
“In order to keep the industry growing we have to find new applications. We have to do it ourselves as the Philippines is one of the biggest players in the world,” Dakay said.
The seaweed industry is looking at a better year in 2011 with its biggest market—the United States—expected to further increase its food consumption.
Dakay earlier said the industry could hit $225 million in output in 2011, higher than the estimated $200 million for 2010.
Fourth-quarter orders for carageenan (processed seaweed) buoyed the industry for 2010, after a poor 2009 which saw the industry generating only $180 million.
Dakay said traditional cotonii variety farmers are expected to continue to recover while mostly Visayan farmers who planted the iota variety for non-food products are expected to increase their volume with the demand from cosmetics.
The 25-year-old industry, which gives livelihood to more than 500,000 farmers mostly in the Visayas, Palawan and Muslim Mindanao, has been plagued by a host of problems —including raw material supply, a fluctuating peso and stiff competition from countries like China and Indonesia.
Dakay hopes the government could assist the industry by ensuring a stable peso and offering financial and technical assistance to seaweed farmers so the Philippines would have enough raw supply to feed its processors.
The Philippines, which pioneered the industry, is only producing 80,000 tons of seaweed raw materials and had to import 50,000 tons from Indonesia just to meet the demand of Philippine-based processors.
Seaweed production in the Philippines dropped by 32% from 103,000 metric tons in 2004 to just 80,000 tons in 2009.
Indonesia posted close to a 40% increase to hit close to 100,000 metric tons in 2009.
The Philippines remains the biggest carageenan exporter in the world at 34,500 metric tons a year.
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