Gross Domestic Product data from creative economy agency shows culinary subsector gives the highest contribution to creative economy Gross Domestic Product which is 41.69 percent. Culinary subsector also has the second highest percentage of Intellectual Property Rights which is 19.75 percent. On the other hand, the export value of the culinary product is only 6 percent and the membership of culinary businessmen in the association is only 13.32 percent.
According to Dean of Faculty of Agricultural Technology UGM, Prof. Dr. Ir. Eni Harmayani, M.Sc., many parties are supposed to give their support towards culinary subsector, thus it can perform global penetration. Moreover, Indonesia has many races and ethnicities which have their own culinary tradition.
“I think it is a tremendous potential, Indonesia is even called as the biggest gastronomic kitchen in the world. It can become a big potential if being well managed,” said Eni at the press room UGM on Tuesday (13/10).
Eni Harmayani said Indonesian culinary tradition is a cultural property and it can have strong effect as well as prosper if being managed optimally. However, in order to compete with foreign food, Indonesian local and traditional food required technological touch, both digital technology and other things including processing technology, packaging technology, etc.
“Technology is required to guarantee sanitation, hygiene, and food safety standard,” she added.
Indonesian Culinary Conference and Festival is a collaboration between Creative Economy Agency and Universitas Gadjah Mada. This event was held from October 3 - 4, 2017 at Koesnadi Hardjasoemantri Cultural Center.
This event consisted of two seminars entitled Soto as Indonesian Flavor Representation and Indonesian Delicious Coffee Traces as well as Indonesian Culinary Festival that presented 34 sets of the top culinary menus from 34 provinces in Indonesia.
In addition, there were also cooking classes entitled Success in Brewing Delicious Coffee and Cooking Soto as well as a master class entitled making various food packages from leaves. Moreover, there was an exhibition of ancient and contemporary food and declaration of Indonesian Culinary Communication Forum (Forkom Kulindo) as an association that will accommodate culinary enterprises in Indonesia.
Prof. Dr. Ir. Umar Santoso, M.Sc. said there are five components that will strengthen the existence of Indonesian Culinary Communication Forum, they are government, businessmen, association or community, academicians, and the media.
According to Umar, all this while, these five components are walking in their own path. Therefore, it needs an effort to synergize all of them for developing culinary subsector, thus it can give more contribution to the increase of Indonesian economy.
“Creative Economy Agency is in charge of developing creative economy and there are 16 subsectors in it, one of them is culinary. Therefore, Indonesian Culinary Communication Forum is expected to contribute to increasing Indonesian economics,” said Umar, the Head of Food and Nutrients Study Center UGM.
Dr. Novi Siti Kussuji I, M.Hum., event’s steering committee, further said Indonesian Culinary Conference and Festival was purposely held to increase the knowledge and information regarding the current development of Indonesian culinary. In addition, it also aimed to encourage the young generation to develop the culinary potential in Indonesia.
On the other hand, Dr. Sri Rahayu, leader of the committee, hopes this event which involved pentahellix plus can encourage culinary subsector that becomes one of the superior subsectors in Creative Economy Agency. This event is expected to support the promotion of Indonesian tourism and place Indonesian food in the global scene.