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Govt to impose national standard on instant coffee
Starting from next year, the government will impose a national standard on instant coffee products marketed in the country to boost protection for a growing number of local consumers and for the local processed coffee industry
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Starting from next year, the government will impose a national standard on instant coffee products marketed in the country to boost protection for a growing number of local consumers and for the local processed coffee industry.
The Industry Ministry's director for beverages and tobacco, Faiz Achmad, said recently that his ministry would require all instant coffee products to meet Indonesian National Standards (SNI) as of January next year.
'The standardization will be specifically targeted for instant coffee products because we've found a lot of low-quality imported instant coffee products that are mixed with the flesh of the coffee berries,' he said recently.
Faiz hinted that the measure was necessary to meet growing demand for quality coffee from local consumers that are getting more selective.
Indonesian Coffee Exporters Association (AEKI) deputy chairman Theng Hong Sioe said that Indonesia's per capita consumption of coffee had been gradually on the rise from around 0.5 kilograms per year to around 1.1 kg at present.
The country's coffee imports tripled from nearly 5,000 tons in 2010 to 15,307 tons last year, with most coffee coming from Vietnam, the world's second largest coffee producer after Brazil.
Indonesia, which is currently the fourth largest coffee producer with an annual output of around 650,000 tons, is used to exporting its high-standard coffee beans overseas while marketing the medium-standard ones domestically, according to Theng.
He said, however, that the portion of locally produced coffee for local consumption was getting higher, at around 40 percent currently from only 20 percent previously.
Faiz said that the national standard on instant coffee products would be applied to both foreign and local coffee producers in a bid to boost the country's coffee downstream industry.
The measure, which is set to take effect as of January next year, was previously planned to be imposed in July this year.
The government has also raised import duties for processed coffee products, including roasted and ground coffee, to 20 percent from around 5 percent previously.
The regulation, which was signed by the Finance Ministry in July, has become a tool of the government in helping the local coffee industry grow better.
Indonesia's processed coffee industry has been growing throughout the years, with the number of coffee-processing companies surging to 90 units last year from 81 units in 2010, according to data from the Industry Ministry.
Local production of processed coffee, including instant coffee, extracted coffee and coffee essence, has surged from 182,326 tons in 2010 to 222,905 tons last year.
Its export volume grew by almost 90 percent to 99,565 tons last year from 52,430 tons in 2010.
The local processed coffee industry, however, absorbs only around 35 percent of the country's total coffee production at present.
