Bapanas Reveals Root Cause Behind Soaring Bird's Eye Chilli Prices

Jakarta, VIVA – The National Food Agency (Bapanas) has confirmed that the high price of red bird’s eye chillies across a number of markets is not caused by a production shortfall.

Deputy for Food Availability and Stabilisation at Bapanas, I Gusti Ketut Astawa, said the surge in bird’s eye chilli prices was due to weather constraints and a shortage of picking labour at production centres.

He explained that national production of bird’s eye chillies remains sufficient, but the harvesting process has been disrupted by heavy rainfall.

“Production is actually more than adequate, but the problem lies in the picking. When rainfall is heavy, workers dare not pick because the chillies rot quickly,” Ketut was quoted as saying by Antara on Monday, 16 February 2026.

Beyond the weather factor, Ketut noted that the labour shortage was also influenced by the national holiday period, which caused supply to wholesale markets to decline even though stocks at the production level remain available.

He explained that these conditions have prevented the distribution of chillies to wholesale markets from running optimally, pushing prices higher at the consumer level. Bapanas stressed that the price increase is unrelated to hoarding practices or price manipulation by business operators.

“In accordance with the directive of the Head of Bapanas, there must be no hoarding and no unreasonable price increases,” Ketut said.

He added that monitoring would continue in coordination with the National Police Food Task Force to ensure food distribution proceeds in accordance with regulations.

An improvement in weather conditions and the resumption of picking activity is expected to boost chilli supply within the next two weeks. Accordingly, the price of red bird’s eye chillies is projected to gradually decline.

Meanwhile, monitoring and inspections conducted by Bapanas at the Kramat Jati Central Market showed red bird’s eye chilli prices at around Rp 80,000 per kilogramme, lower than the previous week when prices had reached between Rp 90,000 and Rp 100,000 per kilogramme.

The figure is not far from data published by the National Strategic Food Price Information Centre (PIHPS), which on Monday showed an average red bird’s eye chilli price of Rp 79,950 per kilogramme across traditional markets in all provinces.