Big market in Indonesia for convenient fruit

There's a greater emphasis on living a healthy lifestyle in Indonesia, and the country's fruit suppliers are hoping that translates into more sales. Per capita consumption of fruit is not great, so there's plenty of room for the fruit market to grow.

“You see it in the new sports facilities and growing interest in running and cycling,” said Erliene Adiwardhana of Nusantara Tropical Farm. “With that, you see more interest in healthy eating, and that includes more fruit.” One of the company's main products is bananas, and more consumers are looking for this fruit to be more convenient.

“One of our strategies is to put the bananas in a single-serve packaging so consumers can pick them up in mini markets,” said Erliene. While large supermarkets exploded onto the scene at the turn of the century, smaller stores have become much more abundant in recent years. Erliene believes that putting bananas and other tropical fruit in these smaller stores as an attractive snack option will boost fruit sales in years to come.



“The biggest challenge right now is just the logistics,” explained Erliene. “We have to figure out how to handle perishable products in mini markets, and then we have to deal with expensive transportation costs.” Many rural growers find it prohibitively expensive to ship their goods to urban centers because of an impoverished infrastructure for shipping goods across the country, which includes many small items. But, with the help of the governments investment, Erliene believes that challenge can be overcome.

Part of the reason why there's so much potential for tropical fruit is because there's an embargo on importing fruit that can be grown in the country. Erliene just hopes that local growers can meet the demand that she sees coming in the near future.

“There's a lot of room to grow for fruit producers in Indonesia,” she said. “So I hope lots of Indonesia growers are interested in supplying that market.”