The process of creating okra flakes. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

THE Department of Science and Technology-Industrial Technology Development Institute (DoST-ITDI), as one of the Research and Development Institutes of DoST, continues to innovate to help uplift local industries, improve their productivity, and contribute to the socioeconomic growth of the country.

Taking advantage of the abundance of agricultural crops, particularly okra or lady finger, and the huge volume of off-specification okra pods that are rejected by the export market, DoST-ITDI explored the potential of this raw material to produce okra flakes or sheets by dehydration techniques using drying equipment such as the hot-plate, oven, and cabinet drier.

The flakes or sheets can then be further processed into nutritious snacks or as an intermediate material for other consumer products like chocolate-coated okra chips, bakery products (bread, cookies, biscuits), and as ingredients for vegetable juice mixes, toppings, and wrappers for several food products.

Okra production grew at an annual average rate of 0.9 percent as per Crop Statistics of the Philippines in 2019. In Tarlac, where okra production is regarded as a sunshine industry, about three to five tons of okra daily is wasted due to off-specifications. This wastage problem is why farmers and exporters are looking for a way to use and convert these rejects into something valuable. Thus, DoST-ITDI explored the potential of processing okra flakes/sheets for use as an intermediate material to other consumer products or as nutritious snacks, and the results were quite promising.

The okra flakes are produced by sorting the okra pods, weighing, washing, sanitizing, blanching, pureeing, and processing using ITDI dehydration equipment and techniques such as hot-plate, oven, and cabinet drying, which are cheaper alternative methods to the expensive drum-drying method. Likewise, the products' physicochemical analyses, microbiological, and sensory evaluations were also conducted and completed.

DDGOTIS, ITDI S&T MEDIA SERVICE