Day 6 - Bogasari and Indofood Instant Noodle Factory

Today we spent the day with Indofood looking at their Bogasari Flour Mill and their Instant Noodle Factory in Jakarta. The sheer size and scale of this company is phenomenal, with an integrated approach to production. Just to give you an idea of products they produce and the divisions of the business; they produce instant noodles, dairy products, infant and pregnancy products, food seasoning and sauces, snack food, biscuits, pasta and of course flour. They also own palm oil plantations and produce palm oil and run their own logistics and distribution network including the ownership of 2 Panamax and 5 handymax vessels!!! Today's trip report is from Tim Bock from Jerramungup........

Take home points I would like to share with other WA growers:
- Bogasari produce 51% of the flour in the Indonesian market.
- From 1970-78 there were only 5 mills in Indonesia, from 1999-2008 6 new mills were built and from 2008- 2013 10 new mills have been developed with another 3-4 to finish production in the next few years. So Bogasari now have many competitors.
- Currently the two Indofood flour mills produce 3.8mmt of flour pa and Bogasari will expand soon to add 5,000 - 6,000t/day new capacity.
- Price and protein content are the main factors taken into consideration when Bogasari are buying wheat. For noodle flour they require 10.5% protein wheat and at the moment buy approximately 70% Australian wheat for their flour production.
- As a customer they would like the wheat to have a Falling Number of 330 to 340.
- The flour millers are increasingly blending flour rather than gristing (mixing) wheat in the milling process now so they can achieve greater accuracy in their flour blends and products.
- Indofood Instant Noodle Factory produces 7,040,000 packets of instant noodles per day with the mill running at 22 hrs per day!!!

Interesting facts and figures:
- Indofood exports 3 x 25ft sea containers of instant noodles to Australia every week.
- 66% of Bogasari flour goes to Small/Medium Enterprises and 34% goes to Institutional Enterprises.
- The growth in flour consumption in Indonesia is approximately 7% pa. With the population growing at 2% pa 5% of the growth can be attributed to changing trends in consumption.
- most bikes and cars in Jakarta drive around with their windscreen wipers up. When we asked they told us it was so they don't melt onto the windscreen with the heat.
- The Bogasari minimum wage paid to milling employees is 250USD/month and the company provides many benefits for the employees including meals, transportation, medical benefits and housing assistance after 5 years employment with the company.