DTI to create 'national standard' for Adobo recipe

The Department of Trade and Industry-Bureau of Philippine Standards (DTI-BPS) has formed a technical committee to develop a set of "Philippine National Standards" for cooking classic Pinoy delicacies such as adobo, sinigang, lechon, sisig, and more.

The technical committee called BPS/TC 92 is tasked to develop the Philippine National Standards (PNS) on popular Filipino dishes. On May 11, the committee already began creating a PNS for the well-loved adobo with "Kulinarya: A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine" serving as their main reference.

The committed further explained that creating a benchmark for adobo "will help preserve the country's cultural identity despite the variations made to it."

"Standardizing the basic cooking technique for Philippine adobo will help ordinary citizens, foodies, and food businesses determine and maintain the authentic Filipino adobo taste," said BPS Director Neil Catajay.

The standards development process is headed by BPS/TC 92 Chairperson, Chef Glenda Barretto, founder of Via Mare Corporation, and Vice-Chairpersons Chef Myrna Segismundo and Chef Raoul Roberto Goco from Food Writers Association of the Philippines (FWAP) and Hotel and Restaurant Association of the Philippines (HRAP), respectively.

"The draft PNS on Philippine adobo will be circulated nationwide, once available, for review and comments of concerned stakeholders," the department said.

On July 11, DTI also clarified that the move to standardize certain national delicacies aims to "define" and "promote" Pinoy cooking internationally.

"This is not a mandatory standard because there are thousands or millions of different lutong adobo… the attempt is to define what we will promote internationally and not redefining what adobo is," DTI said.