JAKARTA – The ministry of cooperatives and small & medium enterprises (SME) said that the production of red palm cooking oil has been started in Deli Serdang, North Sumatera.

The red cooking oil production has been long awaited as a solution to absorb the oil palm smallholders’ production of fresh fruit bunches (FFB), and secure enough local supply of healthy cooking oil as part of basic needs for Indonesian people.

Previously, the ministry of cooperatives and SME said that oil palm smallholders often found it difficult to sell their FFB production to the palm oil mills, which are mostly owned by oil palm plantation companies. They are also often offered low prices for their FFB, while they have no fund and technology to process the FFB into crude palm oil (CPO) and cooking oil.

The Deputy in charge of cooperatives, Ahmad Zabadi said that the red cooking oil plant has been in operation since the end of last year. “It’s been in production since the end of last year,” Ahmad Zabadi told the press after attending the signing ceremony of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Indonesia and Timor Leste in Jakarta on Tuesday (20/02/ 2024).

According to him, initially the plant’s production capacity is only 7.2 tons per day. “It’s because the plant was only based on the concept of mini plan). But we’ll keep pushing them to raise production. In the near future we’ll develop such plant in Riau province. We’re also trying to develop such plants in other locations,” he said.

He said that besides expanding the production of red cooking oil to other places, they will keep collaboration with the existing ones in order to push them for further development and become a role model of sustainable production of red cooking oil for Indonesia.

Last year Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Teten Masduki said that President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has agreed to develop cooperative-based red cooking oil production as a solution to the distribution of red cooking oil so that the supply in public will be adequate.

Based on a number of studies, the red cooking oil, which is produced without the process of bleaching, is healthier and has high protein, vitamin A and E.

Teten further said that one small cooperative-based CPO, Red Palm Oil (RPO) factory requires an investment of Rp23 billion in order to produce 10 tons of red cooking oil per day. The investment can be integrated with working capital and the Revolving Fund Management Agency (LPDB) with 5 percent of interest, while investment on the machine can be integrated with the Oil Palm Plantation Fund Management Board (BPDPKS).

In order to achieve the production target of 10 tons of red cooking oil per day, it requires approximately 50 tons of fresh fruit bunches per day or 1,000 hectares of palm oil land. Thus, the government is expected to develop one small cooperative-based CPO, RPO factory in every 1,000 hectares of palm oil land. Benget Besalicto ST