Coconut is a plant that has many benefit for the people. It is also known as "The Tree of Life" because all of the parts can be used to sustain human life. This tree can be processed into a variety of foods and ingredients such as coconut sugar, VCO, coconut milk, oil, etc. Coconut can be found in many parts of the world and Indonesia is the biggest producer of coconut derivatives products. Coconut plant is spread in almost every region in Indonesia and this is why many Indonesian foods using coconut products. With the with large plantations and productions, creates a great business potential for coconut products to be supplied to locals and international markets.
Here are the reasons why coconut sugar can be a good prospect business opportunity in Indonesia.
Both for household consumption, and for industry, sweetener is an essential part of the daily menu. As an illustration, the growth consumption of sweeteners in the world, in the early 20th century with a population of 1.6 billion people, sugar consumption reaches eight million tons. Currently, the world's population reaches more than six billion people, and sugar consumption is doubled and reaches more than 170 million tons. This means that there is an increase in sugar consumption and consumption patterns. The enhancement per capita reaches until 4-5 times in that period of time. This makes a huge opportunity in the business sector for maximizing coconut sugar product.
2 Health Benefit
With an increasing level of health awareness, coconut sugar is an excellent alternative to providing a solution to the bad side of white sugar for consumers such as diabetes and obesity, it also provides a unique taste, no wonder that palm sugar is becoming more and more popular in the world. Asia is a producer of large countries with high per capita income levels and is generally the main consumer of sugar products, especially in North America and Northwest Europe. Countries with high sugar consumption are the UK, the United States, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, and Australia.
3 Quality
Based on the reference of exporters of ant sugar to several export destination countries, export ant sugar must meet the following standards:
- Meet SNI (SII 0268-85)
- Meets the quality requirements of organic palm sugar
- Has a maximum water content of 2%
Meanwhile, the requirements for organic palm sugar which are popular in the international market require organic certifications such as:
- USDA Organic - America
- JAS - Japan
- EU Organic - Europe
- Control Union
4 Competition
The competition for Indonesian coconut sugar products in Europe is the Philippines in the South East Asian Region. Besides that, there are also North and East African countries due to the closer distance to the European continent. Based on existing data, the export trend of coconut sugar products from Indonesia reaches 20% which is high and creates enormous potential if it is developed further.
With the huge potential of the coconut product business, must be balanced with the fulfilment of quality and sustainability standards. This is a difficult challenge in optimizing this potential. It is necessary for us, to help coconut farmers in standard education, and access to capital. This make them are able to produce high-value coconut derivative products in the global market. This can be a potential for Indonesia to market more coconut sugar products in the international market.
