Celebrating the Farm to Table Movement

CNN in partnership with the Department of Tourism launched the “Kain Na!” movement, a step towards introducing proudly Filipino dishes that is an integral part of our country. It is a movement of re-rooting and rediscovering the taste and culture of the provinces we have. In Davao City, they featured ones we proudly call ours. 

Davao City offers so much promise of growth, prosperity, and abundance. With a variety of resources right at our fingertips, it is now up to us to harness the energy to do something about it. Malagos started as a garden resort who offers an experience and a piece of nature’s knowledge with you. With the onset of the pandemic, we had to strive still. This is where the Malagos Homegrown Produce budded--a farm to table delivery ensemble for each and every homegrown needs you have.

We have always celebrated the farm to table, table to soul movement so much that we make sure each product we offer undergo intricate curated processes. Perhaps you’ve always been a fan of the Malagos chocolate or you are yet to try one. But even before all these, we made sure that when you go to Malagos, you will learn how chocolates are made from tree to bar. How cacao beans are prepared, fermented, and dried then sorted to see how malagos chocolate is made. As Mr. Rex Puntespina, farmer and chocolate maker of Malagos Chocolates, shared with CNN, “the whole good agricultural culture of cacao farming is very important as it really influences the flavor.” By sharing parts of our process, we want more and more Filipino to be empowered by the thought that we can do all these in our country. We are able to make a Davao chocolate we can proudly and uniquely call ours. 

“It was the artistry and the ingenuity of the Filipino. If they were able to do it in other countries, hey, we can do it in the Philippines,” this is how Ms. Olive Puentespina, the Founder and Cheesemaker of Malagos Farmhouse, shared how she found her strength in the Cheese industry. It started with three goats, Marvin, Jolina, and Rica, and the abundance of milk they offered to the family. With this, Ms. Olive, in a long and rewarding process, proceeded into making distinctively Filipino cheese, the Malagos Farmhouse Cheese. Fresh from the farm milk carefully made into cheeses we have grown to love.

When featured in the “Kain Na!” movement, Charles Olalia, Chef/Owner, Ma’am Sir said, “the willingness to go outside the norm and outside the conventional way of doing things, that makes Filipinos. I think Ms. Olivia personified that today.”

Filipino food is simple. It is from the land to the land. With unique, earthy flavors to play with, you can never go wrong. For years now, we have offered both our cheese and chocolates with you. Despite these already making a name on their own even outside the country, we will always go back to our roots: the ones greatly intertwined with that of our local farmers’.

Making cheese and chocolates involves a very long process. Our drive is simple: passion. Passion to educate more and more people that our farmers are capable of making anything possible. These are lost arts but we have managed to bring it to life and strive along with it. 

Claude Tayag, chef, food historian, artist said “Our cuisine is a cuisine of sharing.”  With this, celebrate with us through sharing our proudly local chocolate and cheese. Through it all, let’s rise through this together. Simply head on to Malagos Homegrown Produce and delight in the joys our land offers.