Five students from the Faculty of Engineering, University of Indonesia (FTUI) won 1st place in the ACCESS Business Plan Competition in Renewable Energy (BPCRE) 2022. The team consists of Ariadne Jasmine Ardiana (Chemical Engineering 2021), Christina Amelia (Bioprocess Engineering 2021), Farrel Hakim (Chemical Engineering 2021), Fionna Aurell (Chemical Engineering 2021), and Hana Paskarini Silangit (Chemical Engineering 2021).
The ACCESS Business Plan Competition in Renewable Energy (BPCRE) is a forum for students throughout Indonesia to express their ideas, creativity, and interests in the business world related to the availability of electricity access, and to help rural communities develop businesses in their villages according to the local context. In this competition, there are four business categories that can be chosen to be developed, namely food and beverages, services, environmentally friendly products, and local craft products.
In this competition, Ariadne and her team carried out a food and beverage business category project, namely Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO) which is made from fresh coconut flesh that has been purified. VCO is the purest form of coconut oil, which has undergone a chemical purification process to make it suitable for human consumption. VCO has various benefits, especially in the fields of health and beauty. The content in VCO such as capric acid, lauric acid, palmitic acid, oleic acid, and medium chain triglycerides (MCT) are believed to maintain bone health, increase breast milk production, maintain skin moisture, and reduce the risk of heart disease and Alzheimer’s. In addition, VCO can also be further processed and used as an ingredient in making soap, body butter, lip balm, and face masks.
“Mr. Visco is the brand name of a Virgin Coconut Oil product made from fresh coconut flesh from the Salak dwarf coconut which is a traditional commodity of the island of Borneo. Mr. Visco goes through an enzymatic process stage using the papain enzyme which is the result of extraction from young papaya so that the product yield is 155% higher than without the enzymatic method,” said Adriane.
The team plans to promote Mr. Visco and sell it in 100 ml plastic bottles at a price of IDR 25,000.00, and its production capacity is 730 bottles/week. This business idea was created based on a form of support for the fulfillment of SDGs. The business idea includes collecting raw materials, production processes, product marketing, until the product reaches consumers. The target market for Mr. Visco is business partners in the form of consumers on a small scale until they can reach a large industrial scale.
“The many functions offered create a high demand for VCO in the national and international markets. Based on BPS export and import data (2022), during 2021, exports of coconut products in the form of VCO reached 278.8 thousand tons or an increase of around 4.46% compared to the previous year. The profit from this business can reach 80% or equivalent to IDR 31,570,643.60 every month so that it is estimated that the initial capital will be returned within 2 months. The implementation of VCO business development in Muara Ripung Village will certainly have a positive impact on the environment, support the implementation of the ACCESS Project, and of course benefit the community economically,” explained Adriane.
Dean of FTUI, Prof. Dr. Heri Hermansyah, ST., M.Eng., IPU expressed his appreciation for the Mr. Visco product. “The product offered called Mr. Visco is very much in line with the fulfillment of the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDGs numbers 1, 3, 8, 9, 12, 15, and 17. Hopefully, this product with more benefits for health and beauty can also continue to be developed and have a real and superior impact on the community, especially the 3T community,” said Prof. Heri.
The Accelerating Clean Energy ACCESS to Reduce Inequality (ACCESS) Project Competition is a collaboration between the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (Indonesia), the Ministry of State Administration (Timor-Leste) which is implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). The ACCESS project aims to address the challenges of rural electrification in Indonesia by building centralized solar power plants (PLTS) in 23 3T (frontier, outermost, disadvantaged) locations in the provinces of Central Kalimantan, West Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara. Through the ACCESS Project, it is hoped that more people can have access to electricity using renewable resources and complement the rural electrification and renewable energy programs of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.
Source: https://eng.ui.ac.id/blog/17313/
