Small-scale food industries encouraged to use briquette
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)