Coconut art: Workers arrange pieces of coconut shell. Batok Mas now employs 25 workers. JP/Slamet Susanto

It all began with the financial crisis back in 1998. Concerned about the number of villagers who had lost their jobs, Sumardi and three other young men decided to help create jobs by starting a business.
The business, they decided, would be making handicrafts out of coconut shells. The team settled on coconut shells as their raw material because they were so abundant, usually discarded as waste — and therein lay their attraction for the budding entrepreneurs.

“As mere waste, coconut shells will never run out,” says Sumardi, now 42.

So the group pooled their creativity and resources to start the venture.

Sumardi and Sumarjono both left their existing jobs with a handicraft company for their new business. Sumardi assumed responsibility for production and Sumarjono for marketing.

The other two, Maryono and Nur Iswanto, provided the capital needed and focused on getting hold of the necessary materials.

“Our main asset was the idea leading to this collaboration, to which I contributed my craftsmanship and my friends had some money,” says Sumardi.

He is quick to add that, whatever their designated roles in the venture, the four of them set out
to work on an equal footing to avoid any sense of envy or competition should their business become
a success.

Ultimately, they did experience success, although not without some hard work along the way.
In a hamlet called Piring, located in Murtigading village in the Saden district of Yogyakarta’s Bantul regency, their small handicraft enterprise, Batok Mas, started production in 2003. While being run by the four founders, the business also employed five young men from the village.

Sumardi and his partners had no problem with making the handicrafts. “We’re already accustomed to this craftwork. We also guarantee our product designs and quality,” says Sumardi.

The challenge came in finding a market for Batok Mas’ products. They began by selling their handicrafts door-to-door to souvenir shops and trade centers for a year on consignment.

“There was no market response in the first year. But we remained convinced [of the soundness of the venture] because we prioritized product quality,” says Sumarjono.

Their conviction was well placed. In its second year, Batok Mas began to gain popularity, with orders from various shops flooding in.

Now, about 90 percent of its products are exported, mostly to the US with some to Germany and other parts of Europe.

The Batok Mas products use the shells to make all sorts of products, including chairs, tables, racks, picture frames, table ornaments and tissue boxes.

No artificial colors are used, except varnish and melamine as gloss. Rather, they work with the natural colors of the coconut shells: the brown ripe shells, the brownish-white half-ripe shells, and the clear-white young shells.

After any shell fibers are removed, the shells are cut into small uniform pieces, which are stuck to the handicrafts. The spaces between shell pieces are covered with fibers or resins.

The products are priced reasonably. A key ring, for instance, costs Rp 5,000, and a 4R-sized photo frame Rp 40,000. Chairs or makeup tables measuring 90 x 100 cm range in price from Rp 500,000 to Rp 750,000 depending on their motifs and complexity of work involved.

As the large orders started coming in, the owners were able to employ more workers. From the original five workers when they started, in the second year the number rose to 12. By the third year, they had 25 workers, with the same number employed today.

In 2006, Batok Mas bought a plot of land and built a showroom, although the impact of the global
financial slowdown at the end of 2008 meant they had to put construction on hold.

“Our main target market is Europe and America, so the crisis has adversely affected our business, causing our turnover to decline by over 60 percent,” says Sumarjono.

In real terms, that means that from monthly revenue of Rp 30 million before the financial crisis, the company now has revenue of only around Rp 10 million per month.

Despite the downward trend, the owners have resisted laying off workers, in keeping with the original aim of job creation, even though, as Sumardi acknowledges, it is not good business sense.

“The cost of [paying] our workers has now reached 70 percent of the turnover, which is actually unsound,” he says.

“But we will continue to retain our workers as we’re convinced things will return to normal.”

Sumardi and Sumarjono add that compounding the difficulties for Yogyakarta’s makers of coconut shell handicrafts is unfair competition, as there are now a number of industries of this kind in Bantul as well as the city of Yogyakarta.

The absence of a cooperative forum for coconut shell handicraft producers means some of them
disregard quality, allowing them to sell their inferior goods at lower prices, affecting the reputation of the entire industry. This is something Sumardi wishes to avoid.

“We wish to sit together and talk about this matter in order to create a healthy business atmosphere,”
he says.

For product variety, Batok Mas also uses other materials to complement the coconut shells, such as bamboo and cinnamon wood, while also enriching product motifs with natural features.

“We’re experimenting with motifs based on the flowers around us, to develop products with an environment-friendly theme, reflecting our concerns about global warming,” Sumardi says, adding the
entrepreneurs are confident such pieces will be welcomed by future customers.

— Photos by Slamet Susanto

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