Garudafood Strengthens Partnerships With Local Dairy Cattle Breeders

Photo: Doc. Garudafood

JAKARTA - In celebration of 34 years of work, PT Garudafood Putra Putri Jaya Tbk (Garudafood) gave appreciation to local dairy cattle breeders who have partnered and contributed to the supply of quality raw materials to meet Garudafood's production needs. This appreciation is in the form of giving milk (containers) to maintain the quality and sterility of dairy milk given directly by Johannes Setiadharma, Director of Garudafood to Garudafood's fostered partners in Boyolali, Central Java.

Launching data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in 2022, fresh milk production in Indonesia only reached 968,980 tons. This value is only equivalent to 20 percent of the national demand of 4.4 million tons so that the remaining 80 percent still have to be met through imports. From this data, it can be seen that the potential is still large in growing the dairy processing industry and developing dairy farming businesses in Indonesia.

Related to this and in line with the government's mission to increase the number and production of dairy cows, Garudafood has since 2015 carried out a partnership program with several dairy cattle breeders to meet the needs of fresh milk raw materials.

Johannes expressed his appreciation to cooperative partners and local dairy farmer groups who have marked a decade of partnership cooperation with Garudafood.

"Through the dairy farmer partnership that we have established since 2015, we are not only committed to ensuring sustainable supply and maintaining the safety and quality of products, but also to improve the welfare of the families of farmers. We hope that this partnership can encourage the improvement of livelihoods, empowerment of people's breeders, and development of livestock group cooperatives spread across a number of districts in Central Java and East Java in accordance with the concept of Creating Shared Value (CSV) that we are trying to implement," Johannes said, in a written statement, Saturday, August 31.

Until 2023, Garudafood's partnership network has reached more than 3,500 dairy farmers with a total purchase value of more than 15,500 tons of fresh milk. The dairy products for this cow are then processed to meet the need for fresh milk raw materials to produce quality Garudafood products such as CLEVO and Chocolatos Chocolate Milk.

One of the dairy cow dairy partners Drajat Tri Wibowo, 34, located in Boyolali, confirmed that the Garudafood partnership program is a collaboration that supports each other's efforts.

"I have partnered with Garudafood since 2015. From the partnership that has been established so far, we have obtained competitive price certainty, training on the practice of cultivation and good fresh milk management, technical assistance, facilities such as cooling tanks (cooling tanks) as well as sustainable cow feed from the side product Garudafood. Today, we also receive directly milk can which is useful for maintaining the safety, quality, and cleanliness of milk," said Drajat.

In this partnership pattern, Garudafood plays an important role in supporting the increase in local fresh milk supply by ensuring market availability, competitive price certainty, and providing counseling and technical assistance plus training such as quality control, 5R Kaizen, handling and mitigating the Mouth and Nail Disease outbreak (PMK) and others.

Garudafood also provides production facilities, including a cooling system, generators, and milk can to improve the safety, quality and cleanliness of raw materials. In addition, Garudafood also facilitates the management of production waste into animal feed, provides interest-free loans, and bridges financial access to banks for the development of partner production.

During the first half of 2024, Garudafood managed to record 20% profit growth to Rp258 billion compared to the same period last year of Rp215 billion. The profit growth is in line with GOOD's net sales in the first semester of 2024 which rose 9.3 percent to Rp5.7 trillion.

Meanwhile, gross profit in the first semester of 2024 increased 16.7 percent to Rp1.6 trillion compared to the same period last year. Several positive catalysts are the price stability of raw materials and packaged materials and after the majority acquisition of shares of PT Suntory Garuda Beverage (SGB), beverage producer Okky Jelly Drink and Mountea from Great Wall Capital earlier this year, as well as the contribution of CLEVO milk as one of the engines of growth at Garudafood.

Garudafood targets to increase the company's value both in terms of sales and increase net profit by the end of 2024 through various strategies and efforts, including by making the beverage business a pillar of growth through improving distribution channels and penetration of multi-channel sales. In addition, by issuing superior new products, including Garuda Rosta snack potatoes and Chocolatos Rich.