Onion ice cream. Facebook/Tourism San Jose Official

MANILA — To help farmers when onion prices drop, Occidental Mindoro State College has found a way to transform these bulb-shaped vegetables to summer treats.

The school said it developed a process to make an "onion ice cream" through the Food Processing Center under its College of Agriculture.

According to Arvin Jonathan Flores, the head researcher behind the product, several onions are sometimes not "marketable" due to their small sizes. This and the low farmgate pricing pushed them to innovate products from onion.

"Malaking tulong sa mga farmers kapag bumaba ang presyo, kapag meron silang mga produce na hindi marketable yung mga sizes," he said in an interview on Teleradyo Serbisyo.

(This could be a great help to farmers when farmgate prices are low or if they have produce that are not of marketable size)

When asked about how his team dealt with onion's strong smell in developing the ice cream, he explained:

 "Medyo pungent 'yung sibuyas dahil sa kanyang mga compounds. Through the research activities na ginawa namin, napag alaman namin na upon heating ng sibuyas, nai-eliminate yung pungent aroma".

(The onion is a bit pungent because of the compounds in it. Through our research activities, we found that the pungent aroma is eliminated upon heating the onions)

In a Facebook post, the tourism office of San Jose in Occidental Mindoro introduced the sweat treat early this year. It said that aside from original onion flavor, there are also other variants like Vanilla, Mango and Cookies ‘n Cream.

OMSC has also developed a line up of onion-based products such as onion powder, onion pandesal, onion paste, onion vinegar, onion wine, onion kropek, and more.