Businessman: Rice and Oil Prices Rise Due to Plastic Prices

The Chairman of the Indonesian Food and Beverage Entrepreneurs Association (GAPMMI), Adhi S. Lukman, stated that the rise in plastic prices directly impacts the increase in food and beverage product prices in the market. This occurs because nearly all food and beverage products use plastic for packaging, while the supply of the material is starting to become limited.

“This is indeed a quite complicated situation in the industry, especially for food and beverages. Almost everything uses plastic, and we are also having difficulty obtaining (raw materials) from suppliers,” he said after attending the Coordinating Meeting on US Trade Investigation in Jakarta on Monday, 13 April 2026, as quoted by Antara.

In addition to soaring prices, the availability of plastic raw materials has become a serious issue. Several suppliers have even informed of the potential exhaustion of packaging raw material stocks in the coming months.

“Some have stated that they are running out of raw materials for packaging. From suppliers, some say the last stock will be gone by May or June. This is what needs to be solved,” he said.

Adhi provided further details, noting that the plastic price increase has been significant with a wide variation. The increases range from 30 percent to 100 percent, including for simple packaging like plastic for meatballs and frozen meat products.

“For example, the contribution of packaging to the cost of goods is around 25 percent; if that rises by 100 percent, it means the impact on the cost of goods is very high, around 25 percent, and this will cause the industry to struggle to sell because the products will definitely be expensive, while consumer purchasing power is limited,” he said.

In response, some industry players are beginning to adjust selling prices in the market. In fact, price increases are already visible in several basic necessities commodities that use plastic packaging.

“Some have already raised prices. In the market, basic items like rice and cooking oil. It’s not the goods themselves that have risen, but the packaging that has risen, thus leading to price increases,” he said.

Adhi explained that the cost pressure is also eroding business margins. “For instance, if the packaging contribution is 20 percent, if the price (of plastic) rises by 60 percent, that means around 12 percent increase in the cost of goods. If we can only raise the selling price by 5 percent, then the loss is already 7 percent,” he stated.

To address the supply limitations, Adhi said industry players are pushing the government to open options for importing plastic raw materials from other alternative countries. “Like it or not, we must import. Because if it’s not available domestically, I discussed with our upstream industry, the upstream plastic industry has also seen a significant reduction in production, and even I got information that it’s around 30 percent. Because besides domestically, they have to import some components to produce packaging plastics,” he said.