Pizza that grows on trees

Pizza that you can grow in your backyard with more health benefits than bananas. Sounds too good to be true, but it isn't. 



Breadfruit is low-fat, energy rich and grows easily in tropical climates.

Healthy Pizza

One serving of it has almost half of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C, more potassium than a banana, some anti-oxidants, a moderate amount of essential vitamins and minerals, can help reduce obesity, lower blood pressure and ward off cancer causing chemicals in the body.

Along with the health benefits of breadfruit, it makes awesome pizza.

Today we're exploring how easy it is to make healthy food that not only works well in your body, but nurtures local economy, points consumption choices toward sustainability and creates the opportunity for a local food industry.

Another Breadfruit fact: in Yap, it is second only to coconuts for falling from trees and smashing car windshields and rooftops.

Harvesting the fruit and preserving it from being damaged in the process is a two-person job. One is the cutter and the other is the catcher. A long stick with a blade attached cuts the fruit from its branch, and it can fall from over 20 feet, one lucky individual is tasked with getting a hand-made coconut leaves basket underneath it before it hits the ground and goes omnidirectional.

There's more than one kind of breadfruit, each one with its own density and personality. Boiled, peeled, then pounded, or passed through a food mill, creates the base. With some water, salt, yeast and a bit of flour (max 2%) to get rid of the stickiness the breadfruit turns into ready-to-bake pizza dough.

The complete recipe works for both Yam or Breadfruit, however the breadfruit requires less flour, giving it the advantage when it comes to health and lowering dependency on imported products.

Creating Opportunities

Local food isn't easy, first it must be harvested, cooked and peeled, then processed into fusion products... and finally prepared to eat.

That is either a lot of work for one person, or an opportunity for local businesses to create a local food industry and supply chain: from harvesting, to making breadfruit flour, to produce semi-added value products like dough, and finally to process the final product: breadfruit pizza.

Harvesting and selling local foods is already being done, the processing into ready-to-use and final products is a gap that can be filled by local entrepreneurs.

With ready-to-bake pizza ingredients in local stores, the preparation time barely exceeds that of making Ramen and canned meat for several people, at the roughly the same cost - however the health and economic benefits go through the roof in favor of the pizza.

Growing a Healthy Economy

People could spend the same amount of time and money preparing a better tasting and healthier meal that the whole family loves that is also good for Yap's future.

When you purchase packaged and canned food your money leaves the island and supports a global corporation that results in cheaper, unhealthy and more shelf stabilized products showing up that keep us in the same consumption and economic cycle.


When you purchase a local food product your money stays on the island and goes to the family business who made up part of Yap's food industry.

Consumption choices that lead to a healthier future for Yap and that could serve as a model for the rest of the world.

Breadfruit pizza dough can be stored for 1-2 days without refrigeration, up two 2 weeks in a freezer and left-over pizza is just as good as the first day. 

With the ingredients ready to go, pizza preparation is a matter of chopping toppings and spreading the dough into a pan. These pizzas had pork, eggplant, onion, local chili and bell peppers as well as mozzarella cheese, and cooked in 25 minutes. 

Healthy local food so easy to prepare that even a blogger can do it made from less than 10% imported ingredients.

Alex Raimon and family provided the breadfruit from their property in Tomil and Yap Fusion presented the final product with them at their home.

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Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop

Yap Fusion as Creativity within the Continuity of Tradition 

From the 26 to the 28 of March, the State of Yap hosted the very first UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) Awareness Raising Workshop. 

As Dr. Akatsuki Takahashi, a Culture Program Specialist from UNESCO Samoa that facilitated the workshop said, "ICH is about continuity and creativity", and it is to represent this continuity of local produce and creativity of innovative practices that Yap Fusion has been invited to give a presentation of its work during the workshop under funding for innovative added value products provided by the FSM National Congress for States Trade Fair Events.

ICH is defined by the 2003 ICH Convention as follows: 

"The “intangible cultural heritage” means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity."

For the ICH Workshop Yap Fusion launched a new product: Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Pasta with local Cherry Tomatoes grown and donated by the College Of Micronesia Land Grant.

The product was carefully prepared and served on local leaves to emphasize Yap Fusion's sustainability message.

More than 50 servings were prepared to provide samples of the new product to the workshop participants. Additionally, through Facebook and Twitter the general public was invited to taste their new local food product.

Before serving the pasta samples to the Workshop's participants, Founder, Linda Germanis, gave a brief presentation about her Concept and passed out a flyer.

The presentation touched on Yap Fusion origin, strategy and products, but mainly addressed how this is an expression of ICH;

"The Continuity of traditional products & the creativity of sustainable practices that ensure the physical, economic and environmental wellbeing of individuals and communities", said Linda Germanis.

After the presentation, Yap Fusion left the participants the task to finally taste and evaluate the launch of local pasta.

Yap Fusion continues to demonstrate traction as a food security concept and the flavor is welcomed to the extent that catering contracts are being awarded for other government and traditional functions.

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Promoting Local Food in Community Schools

The Taste of Future Generations

Yap's Gilman Community School hosts an annual food exhibition and tasting contest showcasing local recipes while promoting healthy consumption choices.

Children participate by competing against each other as classes presenting prepared local dishes and deserts.

Yap Fusion was invited via the YWA to present their Yam Pizza.

School principal and community leader, Andrew Flagrong, gathered the children to kick off this year's event and introduced Linda Germanis, UNV Yap Fusion Founder, to the classes.

Linda spoke about local food choices as well as the health and economic benefits before introducing her local "Yap Pizza" concept.

With the formalities complete, it was time to line up and make the rounds tasting up to 25 different local food presentations.

At each classroom presentation a menu, the recipe as well as the local ingredient names in English  and Yapese were on display with the dishes.

Gilman has, so far, the only community school that organizes a local food event.

These events raise awareness on personal health, local production and teach recipes that bring traditional values back into the house and support the family.

Each student has a designated patch of the school's garden to grow produce and are taught how to plant and harvest food as part of the formal curriculum throughout the year.

Along with food security and personal health, students of Gilman learn traditional building, craft making, weaving, dance, gardening and cooking in addition to their general education.

Yap Fusion's local pizza was being served in the outdoor Koyeng - local hut - along with an array of local fruit and side dishes.

Six pizzas were prepared that had either eggplant and tomato or pork and onion toppings.

Local tea leaves were used to serve as plates to reinforce Yap Fusion's sustainability message.

Everybody likes pizza and today the children tasted pizza that was grown in their own backyard.

Over 60 slices were served to the classes that demonstrated healthy, environmental and economic choices that taste good and have a positive impact on their community.

Following up on the successful food security demonstration, Andrew Flagrong called to thank Linda and Yap Fusion for participating in this year's local food exhibition, and an upcoming cooking seminar is being jointly organized to teach the kids how to prepare Yam Pizza.

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Coming Soon...

Yap Fusion will be hosting workshops where you can learn how to prepare the recipes, food processing, packaging and eventually, marketing and exporting. The dates are tentatively the end of April and it will be held at the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) conference rooms. Stay connected with facebook, twitter or check back on our blog for updates.

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