Small-scale food industries encouraged to use briquette

JAKARTA (JP): Households, and particularly small-scale food industries and food hawkers in Jakarta, are invited to use coal briquettes as an alternative fuel for cooking.

"We aim to promote the use of briquettes among small bakers and other food makers such as those who cook and sell fermented soybean cakes (tempe), tofu (tahu), meatballs and noodles," said Commodore (ret.) H.R. Soekiswo of the Main Cooperative for Retired Servicemen.

Soekiswo, who chairs a series of briquette campaigns throughout the city's five mayoralties, made the remark at a campaign held Saturday at the City Hall.

The campaign was the fifth and last in a series aimed at introducing briquettes to Central Jakarta residents. The other four campaigns took place previously in West, North, East and South Jakarta districts respectively.

The campaign was jointly held by the Association of Retired Servicemen, which sells briquettes to cooperatives, and the state-owned coal company PT Tambang Batu Bara Bukit Asam, which produces them.

Soekiswo said he hoped that by making the advantages of briquettes over other fuel sources more widely known, briquettes would finally find favor among Jakartans, especially among those operating small-scale food businesses.

According to Soekiswo, briquettes are more practical than kerosene because it is a solid substance, not liquid that vaporizes quickly. "It won't break if you drop it," he said, adding that briquettes are affordable to low-income people.

"We sell a kilogram of briquette at Rp 250 (11.6 US cents)," Soekiswo said.

Ambyo Mangunwidjaya, the president of PTBA which manufactures the briquettes, said that his company sells a kilogram of briquette to vendors for Rp 215. He estimated that, if the campaign is successful, Jakarta would in the first instance need around 50 kilograms of briquettes every month.

Mrs. Alkasah, who works as a treasury officer for PEPABRI, told The Jakarta Post that briquette is not only a perfect substitute for kerosene, but is also 50 percent cheaper than using kerosene.

"A tukang bakso hawker (meatballs with noodles) told me that now he has to spend only Rp 1,000 a day to buy briquettes instead of Rp 2,000 for kerosene," Alkasah said, adding that a home- industry baker told her he needed only four kilograms of briquette to bake bread for 27 hours. (06)