1st PHL halal-rice chicken packed meals out this week

1st PHL halal-rice chicken packed meals out this week
By Ali G. Macabalang

Marawi City – The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) will formally introduce to consumers the first ever Philippine-made Ready-to-Eat (RTE) rice and chicken packed meals in time for the agency’s 119th founding anniversary this week.

The manufacturer of the 911 Foods RTE rice and chicken meals, Ana’s Breeder Farm of Davao City, has sought clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prior to the distribution of the packed food, DAF Secretary Manny F. Piñol said in his Facebook post over the weekend.

MB File- Department of Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol (Mark Balmores|Manila Bulletin)
The RTE Rice and Chicken meal, which comes in three recipes – afritada, curry and adobo – was set for assessment by Health Secretary Paulynn Ubial in a meeting last Friday with experts of the DAF office on food safety, Sec. Piñol said.

Packed in aluminum foils, the 911 Foods RTE meals are “produced using international HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) and Halal food safety standards” to ensure their permissibility for consumption by Muslim and non-Muslims alike, the DAF chief said.

Producer siblings Jonathan and Rachel Ann Suy who collaborated to prepare the RTE rice meals, are “donating their first production to the evacuees, soldiers and policemen in Marawi City and Lanao del Sur,” he added. .
Piñol earlier heralded the scheduled donation of at least 10,000 packs to Marawi crisis-affected individuals in his visit earlier to more than 20,000 refugees in an evacuation center in Balo-I, Lanao del Norte.

Piñol distributed relief goods assembled by DAF personnel on instruction of President Duterte.
The DAF chief, who can speak “fractured” Maranao dialect, told the evacuees: “Our President, your ‘tunganay” (blood relative), cares for you.”

“President Duterte has been proud about his having a Maranao blood by his maternal grandmother’s lineage from the Samporna clan of Lanao,” Piñol said.

He was accompanied in the visit by a former Maranao ambassador to the Middle East, whom he quoted as telling the evacuees that the military offensives in this city were meant to flush out terrorist elements and subsequently build a new Marawi characterized by good governance.