Sekolah Seniman Pangan: Product Development and Improvement Based on Indonesia’s Local Biodiversity

Abstract

Sekolah Seniman Pangan is an action-based learning entrepreneurial facility that helps young farmers and entrepreneurs who are interested in the field of food production. The facility is located at Kota Bekasi, Jawa Barat and was founded by Ms. Helianti Hilman. She created Sekolah Seniman Pangan as a helping hand to those small holder farmers in preserving the local commodities by helping them produce culinary products that are derived from the local commodities. The intern is placed in the product development department that is responsible for developing new product ideas which are derived from the local commodities of Indonesia. At the same time, providing solutions to issues that happened in the specific region, such as tackling the use of MSG and wheat flour in snacks. The products made were crispy mushroom snacks, dried products such as mango fruit leather and mushroom broth powder, Tepache pineapple fermentation, and jamu syrup. The trials of each product were found to be acceptable and were in line with the findings of existing literature. In addition to the product development activity, an additional task of teaching food safety and processing was done for the local jamu entrepreneur from Borobudur. Overall, the internship provided great insight and experience in the working field, especially in the field of product development. Aside from the gained experience, the internship also provided a great opportunity.