Jakarta, March 26, 2021 - The wealth of spices in various regions of Indonesia is very abundant. Seeing this advantage, many small and medium enterprises (SME) assisted by Pertamina use it to become processed products with high selling value. Therefore, they can raise the treasures of spices from each of them while at the same time making SMEs more competitive and can upgrade.
One of the fostered partners who makes spices as the main ingredient of their products is Irmawati A. Husen. The owner of Ifamoy whose business is located in Bali Bunga Street, Tabona District, Ternate, North Maluku, employs eastern Indonesia’s spices to become a variety of products. “We produce processed walnuts such as walnut jam, walnut coffee and walnut snacks, processed nutmeg such as abon nutmeg, nastar nutmeg, nutmeg tea, and others,” said Irma.
The business that has been carried out since 2007 has slowly shown positive developments. At the beginning of starting the business, Irma only put her products in small shops around her house. Slowly but sure, capitals continue to come until now she has regular customers in various regions in Indonesia. Such as North Maluku itself, Ambon, Sumatera, Jakarta, and other large regions.
The rapid progress of Ifamoy can be seen more clearly when Irma decided to join Pertamina as a fostered partner in 2020. Thanks to Pertamina’s capital assistance, she was able to double the production of walnut coffee from 100 caps/day multiplied 10 times to 1000 caps/day.
These multiple increases in production had an impact on the turnover that was gained. Before becoming Pertamina’s fostered Partner, Irma was able to obtain IDR 20 million per month. Now, her income can reach IDR 60 million every month. “Indeed, there are many big changes that happened to my business after becoming Pertamina’s fostered partner. It is because there are many programs and good mentoring,” she added.
Irma feels that with the development of her business, more locals should be able to feel the benefits. For this reason, she empowers workers who are housewives and women with low levels of education. This is the implementation of SDGs point 8, which is to provide decent work and support the economy, as well as the application of ESG in the social sector.
Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations of Pertamina, Agus Suprijanto added that Pertamina will continue to support the development of local products to make it more global. Especially the utilization of spices that are abundant in Indonesia. “We must protect all of this by assisting MSEs which engaged in this field so that they continue to develop and able to upgrade to the global level,” he said.
According to Agus, through this Partnership Program, Pertamina wants to be able to constantly provide energy that drives the economy. The energy that becomes fuel, as well as the energy that generates sustainable growth. “Pertamina will support Indonesia’s MSEs to be more independent with the intensive assistance that we provide so that these MSEs are able to upgrade themselves,” he concluded.**