The Rise of Young Entrepreneurs from Makassar: from ‘Poisonous’ Taro Cookies to Weaving

Founder of Paccoo.com, M. Zulrikri Al-Qowy, with Paccoo farmers, showing off taro seeds.

Paccoo is a local taro (keladi) in South Sulawesi. It grows wildly and even considered as a pest. Eating it will give you more itches than Javanese taro. But, M. Zulrikri Al-Qowy, who is only 23, is actually curious with these plants, which grow in abundance in his home village, Malakaji, Gowa District. This is in spite of their itch causing effect, which is so bad that the local people call them ‘poisonous’.

“I was wondering if these plants can be cultivated from nothing to having value,” Qowi recited his curiosity at the time.Qowi, who is also from a family of farmers, found that local farmers have low income.

“From cassava harvest, they only received IDR 250 per kilo, from corn IDR 1,600 per kg. So discouraging. And to think that they had to buy import seeds for their corn, also pesticides,” complained Qowi.

All the while, cultivating taro does not need these extra costs. In short, using his educational insurance money, Qowi asked his friend Muhamad Ismail to experiment in processing paccoo, the itchy taro.  

“We brought them to the lab, we checked them at UNHAS for three to four month, trying to get rid of the itchy effect,” he said.Qowi’s team found the secret. Paccoo must first be stored for at least two weeks before being processed. The longer it is stored, the better.

“We have a special storage for this, which is a traditional stage house.”

Initially, taro was only made into chips, sold through paccoo.com and offered to restaurants or small shops. However, Qowi realized that there were already so many chip snacks on the market. With further thinking, Qowi found a fact that South Sulawesi has yet to have a unique snack that can be purchased by tourists as souvenirs.

The result of these further experiments produced cookies, packaged as locally unique souvenirs. Not only that, but Qowi also took nutritional content into consideration.

“Our products are gluten free. Instead of using white sugar, we use palm sugar,” claimed Qowi.

Paccoo.com continues to diversify its products, from onde-onde (sesame ball cookies) to meatball. Paccoo cookies yield monthly earnings of IDR 60-80 million, with a price tag of IDR 50,000 per pack. This figure does not take other products into account. Their market was developed from online selling to being placed in souvenir centers, collaborating with a number of parties.

“We can customize, for example we can put a logo for an event or the name of a specific institution on the packaging,” added Qowi.

Paccoo works with farmers. There are eight farmers working on the fields of paccoo.com, and 15 partner farmers working on their own fields. Paccoo buys taro harvest above the price of corn, namely around IDR 5,000 per kg. Paccoo products are processed in Makassar by school dropout children and mothers from poor groups. Currently, Paccoo is beginning to develop other local product processing, such as coffee and brown rice.

Empowering Farmers and Persons with Disabilities

Still related to farmers, another Makassar youth named Yafshil Adipura or Acil built a Panen (means: harvest) Mart in 2016.

"This start-up is focused on social and environment. Through Panenmart.com, we can help farmers sell their harvested crops,” said Acil.

Acil aims to cut the distribution chain causing the selling price of farmers’ products to be controlled by middlemen. Currently, there are 15 farmers actively selling their products in Panenmart. In addition, there are around two hundred other farmers who are just starting to sell their products.

“Our earnings are around IDR 100 million per month, and we cater to around 1,000 customers, outside of hotels and restaurants,” continued Acil. 

There are at least four hotels and restaurants working together with Panenmart to directly purchase harvested products from farmers. The most popular products are chinese cabbages (sawi), potatoes, carrots, red unions, and cauliflowers. The Panenmart platform is only available for Android. Buyers only need to order through the application with two types of delivery options.

“The first option is delivered within two hours, or the other option is to send it the next day,” explained Acil. 

Going forward, Panenmart will develop an application so that farmers can obtain access to funding and other agricultural information. Meanwhile, for market expansion, after penetrating Makassar, Panenmart targets other regions in South Sulawesi, and subsequently entering the eastern part of Indonesia.

Another young entrepreneur paying attention to the potential of local products is Pratiwi Hamdhana. Just 27 years old, she has developed social entrepreneurship of handicrafts made by people with disabilities and marginalized groups from Eastern Indonesia, under the brand ‘Tenoon’. Tiwi said that currently there are five people with physical disabilities and hard of hearing who produce Tenoon’s products, for example agenda book cover, wall decoration, clothing, and so on. The products are marketed to Java and even abroad.

“Most recently, we sent agenda book cover to New York from a customer in Jakarta,” said Tiwi.

While helping to empower disability groups, Tenoon also attempts to preserve the weaving of Eastern Indonesia, especially from Sulawesi. Tenoon applies fair trade practices for the weavers by granting the price desired by them, as a recognition for their work. The average monthly earnings of Tenoon reach IDR 40 million.

Tenoon is planning on involving more people with disabilities and providing more frequent training.

“We will develop new accessory products by utilizing unused clothing pieces. We will train people, and if we cannot recruit more people, they will become our vendor, our partner,” continued Tiwi.  

Tiwi’s concern for disability groups emerged when she went to school in England. There, people with disabilities are highly supported by both the government and the private sector.

“Then I conducted researches and found that South Sulawesi, my home province, is included in the top three provinces with the highest number of people with disabilities,” said Tiwi.

From there, Tiwi is committed to help people with disabilities to gain access to jobs.

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