“Lukal”, the ginger-calamansi health drink concentrate developed by University of the Philippines (UP) students Sofia Tagle and Meghan Sevilla, was welcomed with rising demand both from health workers and ordinary consumers and has prompted the team to offer sponsorship of bottles for donation.
Good News Pilipinas learned that what started as the two university friends’ initiative to join COVID-19 responses from their homes in Quezon City and San Juan while under lockdown has spiraled into a bigger production with multiple requests for the health drink coming from both hospitals and ordinary netizens who have seen and heard about “Lukal”.
“Lukal“, an abbreviation of Filipino terms luya (ginger) and kalamansi (calamansi), is the drink concentrate created by the UP B.S. Food Technology senior students while under lockdown.
With the help of their respective households and in consultation with their professors, the UP blockmates were able to produce 40 bottles of Lukal concentrate that are equivalent to 466 glasses of the vitamin C-enriched drink for donation to frontliners in the fight against COVID-19.
The UP state scholars were able to donate 5-24 bottles of drink concentrate to the Philippine General Hospital, Lung Center of the Philippines, Philippine Heart Center, RITM, St. Martin de Porres Charity Hospital, Rizal Medical Center.
They are scheduling another round of donations to the same hospitals and expanding their donation to other facilities.
Within days into their production, the Lukal Ph Team started accepting orders for their “Buy 1 Give 1” scheme which matches every bottle purchased for Php260 with a bottle donation to hospital frontliners. The delivery is arranged through Grab, Lalamove, or Transportify c/o the customer.
Sofia Tagle and Meghan Sevilla shared with Good News Pilipinas that they are now already processing orders for Batch 6 of the “Buy 1 Give 1” scheme to produce more bottles for donation.
Asked if they would consider continuing their passion project even after the Luzon lockdown is lifted, Tagle says, they are now just focusing on helping, but that developing it into a business may be an option.
Inquiries may be directed to Lukal Ph on Facebook. Donation orders may be done through this form.
The UP community response to the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn out various initiatives including the UP National Institutes of Health development of the COVID-19 Test Kit, UP Manila’s low-cost ventilator, UPLB’s ventilator caps, UP Manila-UP Diliman collaboration on the RxBox vital signs monitor, UP Visayas disinfectant alcohol from molasses, among many others.
SEND ORDERS for Lukal to help them provide more health drinks to the nation’s hospital frontliners.
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