JAKARTA – President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) inaugurated on Thursday (14/03/2024) a red cooking oil plant in Deli Serdang regency, Nort Sumatra province, which is the first of its kind in Indonesia. It is one of several red cooking oil plants that will be developed by the government in other locations in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi.
President said that with the operation of such processing plants, smallholders can maximize the added value of their fresh fruit bunches from their own palm plantations. It is also part of the government program to push the downstreaming process in palm oil industry as a whole, not only among palm oil companies, but also among smallholders.
Indonesia has more than 16 million hectares of oil palm plantations, of which 40.5% or 6.2 million hectares are owned by smallholders.
President said that by allowing the smallholders to develop their palm fruit bunches and further process it to red cooking oil, they can stabilize the palm oil price. ”We want the added value created at home. That’s why we develop this red cooking oil plant. This is the first one. We hope this will create added value for our smallholders, especially those already grouped in cooperatives. And this will also help stabilize prices,” President Jokowi said during the inauguration ceremony.
He further said that one of the advantages of red cooking oil is its competitive price compared to other cooking oil. The red palm oil-based cooking oil is also rich in nutrients, antioxidants, vitamin A and E.
“This has been tested by a number of chefs. They said that this red cooking oil is different, tastier and richer in nutrients,” the president said.
The first red cooking oil plant has a processing capacity of crude palm oil (CPO) at 10 tons per day with output of around 7.0 tons of red cooking oil per day.
According to Jokowi, the development of red cooking oil plant is part of the government’s downstreaming program to increase added values of commodities by processing them into various finished products. “Do not sell your commodities unprocessed in fresh fruit bunches or in CPO. We should process them into finished products like this red cooking oil. This is very good indeed,” he said. (*)
Source: sawitku.id