Lebaran cookie business booms
Lebaran cookie business booms
Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung
Since the first day of Ramadhan, Rukayah has been spending most
of her evenings out trying to earn additional money to add to her
meager earnings from doing her neighbors' laundry.
After putting her two children to bed in her home in
Bojongkoneng, Bandung, the 23-year-old goes to the house of Ina
Wiyandini, a kilometer away.
There, dozens of other housewives are busy assisting Ina in
making cookies for the Idul Fitri celebrations.
"By doing this work I can earn more money to buy my children
new clothes," said Rukayah, who works from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. daily
and earns at least Rp 20,000 a day (US$2).
Increasing orders for cookies has forced Ina to find 100 extra
workers from around the neighborhood.
This year, she received almost twice as many orders as last
year. She started her business in 1992 with 50 people working for
her.
"Last year we received orders for 5,000 dozen of cookies but
now we have orders for about 9,000 dozen. We've completed 7,000
dozen so far," Ina said in her home-cum-factory in Bojongkoneng.
The increasing number of orders forced Ina to reject a number
of big orders two months ago, deciding instead to concentrating
on orders from her regular customers.
Another cookie producer, Dedy Hidayat, is also enjoying good
business and has had to turn down some big orders in order to be
able to continue supplying his stores in Bandung and Jakarta.
"This year, our orders increased, but not so much. Last year,
we received orders for 8,000 dozen and this year we have received
orders for 9,000 dozen," said Dedy, who has been in the business
since 1996 and employs around 200 workers.
Ina said she was relieved that the cookie business had not
slowed down despite the rising cost of basic necessities
following the government's decision to raise fuel prices by an
average of 126.6 percent on Oct. 1.
However, the fuel price increases have pushed her production
costs up by 35 percent, forcing her to raise the price of a 500-
gram box of regular cookies from Rp 30,000 to Rp 33,000.
The prices of her cookies vary between Rp 33,000 and Rp 75,000
per 500-gram box.
"The quality of the cookies depends on the composition of the
dough. The regular ones, for instance, use a half kilogram of
cheese while the special ones might use two kilograms," said Ina,
who sells 60 varieties of cookies, from the usual nastar
(pineapple-filled cookies) to choco-crunch cookies.
Like Ina, Dedy has also been forced to increase the price of
his cookies to between Rp 33,000 and Rp 43,000 per box.
He said the prices had not increased too much as he had
already purchased the main ingredients, like flour and eggs, two
months before the government increased fuel prices.
"I don't know the latest prices of those ingredients now. The
most important thing is that I can meet all of my orders for Idul
Fitri," Dedy said.
However, both Ina and Dedy declined to say how much profit
they would make this year.
Anticipating slower business with lower purchasing power after
Idul Fitri, both of them said they had been trying to expand the
market, including marketing their products abroad.
Dedy, who is assisted by his wife Diah, has prepared varieties
of cookies that they hope will satisfy consumers' tastes
overseas, while in September this year Ina had shipped 100 dozen
cookies to a Singapore businessman to test the market's
acceptance of her products.