B

akeries see a positive outlook for their businesses this year and ahead as Indonesians consume more wheat-based products, including noodles and bread.

Publicly listed Nippon Indosari Corpindo, the nation’s largest mass producer of bread, expects sales to grow 20 percent despite an expected weakness in domestic economic activities. Singapore franchise artisanal bakery BreadTalk will open another 20 to 30 outlets across the country this year, adding to its existing 162 stores nationwide from Jayapura to Medan.

Recent research by Dutch lender Rabobank suggests that consumption of wheat-based products
has been rising significantly in the past 10 years, while rice consumption — the main staple for Indonesians — has stagnated. This suggests a shift in what Indonesians eat as staple food.

From 2010 to 2015, baked goods grew an average of 11.7 percent in value and 5.5 percent in volume as more companies expanded their capacity and opened new stores in smaller cities, according to the research report, written by Rabobank consumer foods analyst Haris Rahmanto.

“We innovate our products and introduce new variants every two months,” BreadTalk’s brand manager Tessa Adriani explained about the company’s strategy to increase sales. BreadTalk’s most popular product, which makes the biggest contribution to the company’s sales, is “fire floss” — bread with spicy chicken floss topping.

Artisanal bakeries with central kitchens such as BreadTalk account for almost half of Indonesia’s total bakery market value, followed by industrial bakeries — such as Sari Roti and Mr. Bread — with 33 percent, while private labels account for 18 percent.

For industrial baker Nippon Indosari, which produces Sari Roti, the growth story continues to serve well. It is targeting higher sales growth of 20 percent this year from Rp 2.17 trillion in 2015, which was a 15 percent increase from the previous year.

“The company is upbeat about achieving the figure. Moreover, amid changing lifestyles of the people who have become busier, Sari Roti can serve as a practical food product that can be consumed on-the-go,” Nippon Indosari wrote in response to written queries from The Jakarta Post.

“To reach the sales target, the company will consistently maintain the quality of its products. Apart from that, the company continues to develop the existing distribution system to reach out to many people so as to make it easier for them to get Sari Roti products,” the company said.

Nippon Indosari, owned by Salim Group conglomerate’s retail arm Indoritel Makmur International, has 10 factories, namely three in Bekasi, just outside Jakarta, and the remainder in Pasuruan, Semarang, Medan, Palembang, Makassar, Purwakarta and Cikande, giving it a wide distribution network to serve consumers across the archipelago.

Minimart chains Indomaret and Alfamart, which collectively run more than 20,000 stores nationwide, have also seen good growth in their sales of bread products.

Alfamart, which has 11,000 retail stores across Indonesia, has its baked goods label Paroti, which produces products ranging from bread to cakes. Its private baked goods label saw a whopping 81.3 percent growth in sales in the first quarter of this year from the same period last year, while non-private label bread sales rose 84.2 percent.

For Indomaret, which is owned by Salim Group’s Indoritel, bread sales have risen 25 to 30 percent over the past five years, both in terms of volume and value.

Indomarco Prismatama public relations manager Nenny Kristyawati, whose company runs the Indomaret outlets, said much of the growth came from the sales of white bread and sweet bread with chocolate and cheese flavors, among the 20 to 30 variants of bread sold in the company’s 12,900 outlets.