Quail festival in Lipa City presents ideas for biz ventures

 

LIPA CITY – Hop on a Manila-bound bus here and you will see vendors selling quail eggs or pugo pegged at P10 per pack.

Walk across the sidewalks of Ayala Highway near Robinsons, SM or at the public market vicinity and you will salivate on the delicious streetfood

Add quail eggs with pickles and one can have pickled quail eggs for a product. One can have pickled quail eggs with different flavors, like Jalapeño. (photo by MARLON LUISTRO / The Filipino Connection)

Add quail eggs with pickles and one can have pickled quail eggs for a product. One can have pickled quail eggs with different flavors, like Jalapeño. (photo by Marlon Alexander Luistro / The Filipino Connection)

kwek-kwek.

Go to the meat section of the supermarket and dine on various restaurants and carinderia stalls here though and quail meats and delicacies are nowhere to be found.

This is what an agricultural cooperative, the Philippine Quail Entrepreneurs, Sellers and Traders (Philquest), is introducing to this city as they spearheaded last Sept. 29 the country’s first-ever Quail Festival, whose theme is “National awareness of the Philippine Quail Industry.”

Lipa City was made the founding site of this festival given reports of many backyard quail raisers.

“We have many quail raisers here in Lipa but people are unaware of it because it’s more on backyard industry. Not only are quail eggs or kwek-kwek available but also quail meat so it wouldn’t go into waste,” Philquest board chairman Winston Lazarte told The Filipino Connection.

“Sometime quail meat is just being disposed, given away and fed to the dogs, which is such a waste.”

Part of the Lipa’s quail festival includes cooking contest, where a group of chefs from competing teams of Philippine Chef Society, Lorenzo’s Catering and Royal British College, showcased their culinary and food preparation skills.

Each of them was given 90 minutes to prepare and cook quality quail delicacies for the following categories: pang-kalye (streetfood), pang-bahay (home-prepared), pampulutan (meals for drinking sprees), and pang-handaan (for parties).

They were adjudged in terms of preparation, creativity and taste.

Judges and viewers were able to taste newly made quail dishes such as adobong pugo, dilawang pugo or quail curry, and pugo barbeque.

The aromatic scent of quail meat with egg noodles, spicy wings with honey mango mustard quail egg dressing, spiced salt and pepper quail lollipop and quail legs in showers also appealed to the audience’s taste buds.

Lording over the cookfest was Lorenzo’s Catering, bagging awards for the overall champion, pang-kalye, pang-bahay and pang-pulutan categories. Philippine Chef Society won the pang-handaan category.

Quail meat can be a deal, quail festival organizers say. Add quail egg with noodles. Make quail spicy wings, together with a honey mango mustard quail dressing and spiced salt. Make also a pepper-laced quail lollipop. There's also quail legs in showers. There's more to cook from quail: adobong pugo, dilawang pugo (quail curry), and pugo barbeque. (photo by Marlon Alexander Luistro / The Filipino Connection)

Quail meat can be a deal, quail festival organizers say. Add quail egg with noodles. Make quail spicy wings, together with a honey mango mustard quail dressing and spiced salt. Make also a pepper-laced quail lollipop. There’s also quail legs in showers. There’s more to cook from quail: adobong pugo, dilawang pugo (quail curry), and pugo barbeque. (photo by Marlon Alexander Luistro / The Filipino Connection)

Aside from the cookfest, Lipa’s festival also showcased foodtasting and seminars on quail raising, quail farm structure, quail feed nutrition and a seminar introducing people to Philquest.

By making people aware of the availability of quail meat, eggs and other by-products and letting them taste its various delicacies, Lazarte hopes they would be able to invite more people to consider raising quails in their respective backyards and farms as an additional source of livelihood.

A minimal capital of P100,000 would be sufficient to raise quails, and these fowls would lay eggs daily for 10-14 months.

“If one has 10,000 quails and they lay one egg daily, then you will already earn P10,000. Let’s say their net production is 8,000, you still have P8,000 which is not bad,” Lazarte explains.

Since quails are small, even a lot less than 10 square meters would be sufficient to house 5,000 quails compared to chickens that would require bigger lots and cages.

Quails, by nature, are also wild animal which means they are sturdy. Try to pack them with chickens and ducks, quails are stronger, says Lazarte.

Farmgate prices of quail are previously pegged at P1 per piece but prices have gone down in the aftermath of the country’s first-ever birdflu outbreak in San Luis, Pampanga.

Lazarte remains optimistic though that the prices would bounce back soon as the government’s agriculture department has already lifted ban on poultry shipments on Sept. 3 and declared that the birdflu crisis is over.

Quail farm owner Rodrigo Umali testified that the quail industry has lots of potential to grow as from his experience he was able to raise from 1,500 to 250,000 quail chicks in his hatchery farm in a matter of three years.

“This is a source of employment. We don’t have to go abroad and be slaves. All we need to do is to apply our knowledge and we have the opportunity to earn income,” Umali, an agricultural engineering graduate, said.

What is only missing, he says, is the government’s recognition of the quail industry.

In the near future, Philquest plans to hold similar quail festivals in Nueva Ecija and the Visayas and Mindanao region, which he says will help equalize 

The country's irst Quail Festival held Sept. 29 in Lipa City also had a 90-minute cooking contest. Partcipants were asked to develop delicacies out of quail meat, which judges here (in this photo) tasted their taste. (photo by Marlon Alexander Luistro / The Filipino Connection)

The country’s irst Quail Festival held Sept. 29 in Lipa City also had a 90-minute cooking contest. Partcipants were asked to develop delicacies out of quail meat, which judges here (in this photo) tasted their taste. (photo by Marlon Alexander Luistro / The Filipino Connection)

the law of supply and demand for quail eggs and meat.

They also plan to join next year’s Lipa fiesta on January 20 to be able to market more the quail industry.

Mayor Meynardo Sabili pledged support to Philquest, describing it as a “welcome opportunity” to boost the city’s agriculture and economy, and an additional source of livelihood for Lipeños.

Sabili said he would allot an additional budget for the city cooperative office’s microfinance program to be able to give interested people the opportunity and access to capital for the quail business.

“Often we don’t notice the smallest of things. Who would have thought quails can provide income,” he said.

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About Jeremaiah Opiniano