MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Tourism recently launched a stand-alone online platform Philippine Harvest e-commerce website to make Filipino flavors accessible to the public online amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The site phharvestdot.com was co-developed with IT solutions company Cloud Panda PH.
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The e-commerce site seeks to promote Philippine culture through products that are local, organic, artisanal and indigenous. It carries quality-sealed fresh and processed food selections from local farmers and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country whose livelihoods were affected by the pandemic.
“Cloud Panda has been developing applications and software that provide assistance to businesses. We are happy to be working with them now more than ever, knowing that they will help us strengthen the Philippine Harvest initiative in making Philippine-made produces readily available to the Filipinos,” Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said.
The DOT said Philippine Harvest products can be delivered by merchants straight to the online shoppers’ homes.
Participating merchants, on the other hand, are given access to the business tools of the site. The online platform provides them account for order tracking, inventory management, product catalogues, links to their social media accounts, among others.
“Our country’s agricultural harvest is considerably vast, it only needs an effective channel to reach the right consumer, and I believe the technology that we have today can help us achieve that goal,” Carlito Macadangdang, Cloud Panda PH co-founder said.
“I believe that Philippines harvest initiative is the right path in moving people and produce towards a common goal, to help feed the economy during these trying times,” Cloud Panda PH Co-founder Jonathan So added.
Last April, the DOT launched the online leg of the Philippine Harvest trade fair via Facebook, with at least 40 small farmers and MSMEs participating as merchants.
Meanwhile, its products were also made available by Grab Philippines through its delivery service Grab Express platform. The DOT signed its collaboration with multination ride-hailing company on June 16.
Puyat, a former agriculture undersecretary who is advocating to promote farm tourism in the country, encouraged the public fo maximize the use of internet to support local businesses as well as homegrown products.