Earning forex with coconut fiber

By Bambang Tiong

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Coconut husk fiber used to be ignored because it wasn't considered useful. It was mostly used simply for fire wood, mats or sofas. But thanks to one person's creativity, it is now capable of yielding foreign exchange.

Johny Susanto, 37, and a Yogyakarta resident, has succeeded in making a breakthrough in making good use of coconut husks; he turns them into colorful flowers.

"Coconut husk has in fact a high-potential. The only thing is it needs to be processed efficiently and presented in an attractive way," said Johny, a craftsman who has been in the business for a year and a half.

He says there are plenty of souvenirs that can be produced from coconut husks. But his experience taught him that imitation flowers were the most popular. This made him decide to only produce the flowers, such as sunflowers and lotus flowers.

The idea to create souvenirs from a cheaper material came when he was walking along Yogyakarta's main drag Jl. Malioboro, looking at the various costly souvenirs offered by the sidewalk traders. A few days later, he accidentally saw a few pieces of coconut husk lying in a garbage can. After looking to his left and then to his right, ashamed of being seen, he picked up the coconut husk and took it home.

Since then, Johny, whose batik business collapsed due to the monetary crisis, has found a life again.

With an initial investment of no more than Rp 100,000, he bought 500 coconut husks from the Wates area for Rp 50 a piece. The price has now increased to Rp 100.

He then made various imitation flowers from the coconut husk.

At first, he only sold his works to a limited amount of people: his friends. Unexpectedly, others people, including souvenir vendors, also ordered his flowers.

He then increased his production and is now being assisted by 30 workers, each of whom produce 20 large flowers (lotus and sunflower) and 75 small flowers (orchids) a day. These days, he produces at least 600 flowers a day.

He pays his workers -- 80 percent of them housewives and the remaining 20 percent women living in his neighborhood -- based on the quantity of flowers produced. Each of them receives Rp 500 for making a big flower and Rp 250 for a small one.

Johny said his workers train for around 10 days to two weeks to acquire the necessary skills. After mastering the techniques, they are then given the material to work at home. The flowers are then delivered to him by the workers the next morning.

One of the workers, Winarto, 29, confirmed that earlier he couldn't make coconut husks into imitation flowers, but learned the skills in the training period. Now, he proudly claimed he had money to buy himself food and cigarettes.

Process

Before the production process, good quality coconut husks must be found.

According to Johny, the coconut husk must be old because it has the right texture, durable and the finished product will not wrinkle easily. The hard skin of the coconut must first be peeled off so that only the husk is used.

When making a flower, the coconut husk is split into eight parts, and each part is later divided into three. Thus, a coconut husk produces 24 sheets depending on the size of the flowers with an average thickness of four millimeters.

To avoid wrinkles, the old coconut husk is then dried in the sun for a number of days to reduce its water content. But the husk must not become too dry. "If it is too dry it is difficult to form the flower's sepals," Johny explained.

The sepals are then colored using food colorants in accordance with the color of the flowers. The next step is arranging the sepals into a whole flowers and a stem using glue. The stem is made of bamboo or rattan, is 50 cms long and has a diameter of a baby's little finger.

Agel thread, which is made of flax (rami), is then used to cover and strengthen the joint between flower and stem, while the stem is also covered with a banana stem to give it a natural look.

Each flower's crown is made out of chips of coconut husk obtained from leftovers from the making of the sepals, and some leaves glued to the stem. The flowers' leaves are made of corn leaves. A coconut husk can produce two or three flowers depending on its size.

The imitation flowers are sold for between Rp 1,000 and Rp 2,000, and have now reached big cities like Jakarta and Surabaya. Some are even exported to Europe and the United States.

Although Johny has to produce many flowers, he finds no problem since the raw material is always there.

"Coconut fiber is no problem. My problem is that I cannot cope with filling the orders," said Johny, whose monthly turnover now amounts to Rp 75 million with around 20 percent profit.

His customers usually place their order, pay for it and the goods are then delivered. Johny prefers to send his flowers by train since it is assured they will remain intact.

"The export of my goods is handled by a colleague in Jakarta," he said.