Early birds have their own market for sweet snacks

By Carl Chairul

JAKARTA (JP): The recession has many companies fearing for their future. But Mak Taci, a snack distributor at the Senen market, does not seem fazed. She can smile because business is as brisk as usual.

"Now I'm ready to call it a day," she chirped gaily to a visitor at 6 a.m. last Sunday.

Packing up her stall when most other businesses have not opened?

That is what Mak Taci and hundreds of her fellow distributors do. This robust Chinese woman from West Sumatra revealed how she opened her business before the crack of dawn, the time when customers and snack vendors start purchasing their merchandise for the day.

"We are just like a flock of bats," she said, wrapping the remaining snacks for her last customer. "We go home to our nests when you normal people start your business in the morning."

Pasar Senen never sleeps. The area outside the main building, including the canopied walkway facing Senen Atrium, is used by sidewalk traders under a rotating system.

During daytime, this part of the complex teems with local traders selling clothes and accessories. At midnight, the wares available shift to snack and cake distributors who park their mobile kiosks outside the area.

Many varieties of snacks and cakes are sold here, ranging from cheap cassava crackers to black forest cakes. Buyers come from as far as Bogor, Tangerang and Bekasi.

"We are in the market this early because we do not have time to do the buying later on," said Abau, a vendor who runs two restaurants in an office complex and a snack outlet in a hospital.

"You'll have to spend three times as much if you buy these snacks from a bakery," added Sandy, whose mother runs a catering business for seminar organizers.

"If you attend a seminar in a five-star hotel, don't assume the snacks during the coffee break are provided by their chefs. They come from either Pasar Senen or Pasar Melawai."

Pasar Melawai in Blok M, South Jakarta, is another early morning market, but it is not as big as Senen in its snack range.

Profit

Daily profits among the hundreds of traders reach millions of rupiah through sales of delicacies like bolu kukus, getuk lindri and kroket. Prices begin at a mere Rp 100 a piece.

Kompas daily reported last year that traders on average took home a daily profit of Rp 1 million.

"It's convenient to buy goods here," a woman said. "I usually place orders one or two days in advance.

I only tell them the type of party or convention I am catering for, and the number of expected guests. They decide the amount and the snacks and cakes to provide."

Generally, distributors get their merchandise from large producers called cukong (literally "boss") based on consignment. This means they do not need to invest and risk losses. Unsold cakes are returned to the producers.

Mak Taci is an exception.

"I make my own snacks and sell them myself. This way, I make a much bigger profit," she said, snatching two pieces of lemper, a glutinous rice cake stuffed with ground meat or chicken, from the snack box of her neighbor, Trindil.

"Excuse me, this is my breakfast," she said, generously offering one of the cakes to the visitor.

Trindil feigned anger and stood with arms akimbo. "She can't live without stealing my lemper!"

Trindil has another reason for not taking her merchandise from the producers.

"I have a name of my own," she said proudly, throwing one of the lemper to a thankful parking attendant.

"When it comes to lemper, people always look for Trindil. After all, why do you think Mak Taci is so fat?"

At the end of their business hours, distributors and cukong exchange snacks.

"I'm fed up of my own cakes," one producer said, holding up a plastic bag full of different snacks gathered through exchange.

Taking a snack or two from neighbors not only reflects intimacy between the early birds. Some also believe that having merchandise taken (or stolen, as Trindil jokingly phrased it) by other traders brings luck for boosting sales.

There is a changing of the business guard at 8 a.m. Daytime vendors arrive and the early birds are ready to go home. But before they leave, there is one final thing to do: breakfast together. They raid foodstalls at the other end of the parking lot.

The commotion at the foodstalls is caused by both the arriving and departing vendors, including those who run their business on the permanent premises in the main building.

They gobble breakfast standing up and chat noisily. Traders exchange information on what is going on during their daily "standing ovation".

There is, however, a slight mood of competition between the permanent tenants and the sidewalk traders.

"But we don't kill each other," one of them said. "Trading here is just like traffic in a heavily congested road.

"We have to give way to others to keep everything moving, albeit at a slow pace. Otherwise, the whole thing will come to a standstill."

Simple words, but a philosophy that could well be adopted by those big businessmen forever at each others' throats in pursuit of being number one.