Sembalun Subdistrict is one of the sub-districts located in East Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara. If in Malang there is Batu City and in Central Java there is Dieng, then in Lombok there is Sembalun. In addition to the beautiful and stunning natural scenery, many plantations and natural products can be found, including strawberries, carrots, lettuce, garlic and also potatoes. The types of potatoes cultivated by Sembalun farmers are yellowish vegetable potatoes and white industrial potatoes.

In 2022, the Unram Team received research funds for the Kedaireka Matching Fund scheme chaired by Ir. Aluh Nikmatullah, M.Agr.Sc., Ph.D. This activity was carried out through dissemination of seed technology, cultivation and processing of industrial potatoes. The team leader revealed that specifically for this potato processing activity, it involved a group of peasant women who were MSME actors to process potato tubers whose quality was not absorbed by the industry and build local entrepreneurs. “It is known that almost 30% of the potato harvest cannot be absorbed by the industry, this can be caused by various factors including the size that is too large, too small or exposed to hoe scratches during harvesting, so it is necessary to process it into various products,” he said.

Assistance activities for processing industrial potatoes into various products including potato bread, potato crunch, potato sticks, bomboloni donuts and baked potatoes. This activity was guided by a member of the Matching Fund Team, namely Ihlana Nairfana, S.TP., M.Si. who is a lecturer in Food Technology from Sumbawa University of Technology. Two Farmer Women’s Groups (KWT), namely KWT Segara Muncar from Sajang Village and KWT Sembalun participated in this mentoring activity for 5 days on 23-27 October 2022 which took place at the Sembalun Agro Hotel and Resto Hall. The enthusiasm of the participants was very evident during the activity. “We are very happy to be able to get training like this, previously we had only processed potatoes into chips, never thought that they could be processed into many kinds of products,” said Hulpa Andriani, one of the participants from KWT Segara Muncar. Various kinds of processed products are planned to become souvenirs typical of Sembalun.

Of course, in order for processed products to be marketed more widely, participants need to be equipped with good food processing procedures, licensing worthy of product distribution and business analysis calculations. Therefore, on October 28-29, 2022, Ihlana Nairfana, S.TP., M.Si. conveyed the prospects for the development of processed potato products for the Indonesian market. On this occasion, it was explained about the characteristics of potato raw materials and the nutrients contained in them, the handling of raw materials and auxiliary materials, processing methods and examples of the types of processed products that can be made.
After that, training on Good Food Processing Methods for the Household Industry (CPPB-IRT) and the Procedure for Applying for Household Industry Food Licensing (PIRT) was delivered by Heru Biantara, A.Md.Far from the East Lombok District Health Office. In his presentation, Heru explained the aspects in CPPB-IRT, the scope of inspection of production facilities, provided examples of good and bad processing practices, and explained the requirements for proposing PIRT. As an output of this training, all participants received a food safety counseling certificate, which will be used as one of the absolute requirements to register a PIRT permit.

Other training materials were delivered by Heldy Sardianto, ST., M.M.Inov. from the Regional Product Packaging Center, West Nusa Tenggara Industry Office. The training participants were given an explanation of the function and type of packaging, labeling and trademarking regulations, food packaging regulations, packaging concepts and factors that must be considered in packaging, especially the packaging of potato products. On this occasion, Heldy also gave a demonstration of the use of vacuum sealer machines to participants. One note on this session is the need to create a trademark with a unique and distinctive name. Heldy revealed that “the trademark to be created must be unique and new, not yet registered with the DJKI. The term potato ruti is the name of the type of processed product, it needs to be made a brand so that it can be known by the market,” he said.

Material related to business feasibility analysis was delivered to participants by Tomy Dwi Cahyono, S.Kom., M.M., a lecturer in Digital Business from Sumbawa University of Technology. On this occasion, Tomy created a digital application with the name “DigiSembalun” for daily business recording, so that later these MSMEs do not need to record daily sales manually. In addition, through this application, participants can calculate the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) and projected profits in just a matter of minutes. That way, MSMEs can predict the selling price of the product after considering all costs and depreciation. This application was handed over to be used by participants to build their new business.