Ginger is one of the most sought-after spices in Indonesia and almost every household has it in their kitchen. Indonesia has three types of ginger which are elephant ginger, regular ginger and red ginger (UNUSA 2021). As each has its own benefits, all of these ginger types have been popular for many reasons, from cooking ingredients to medical ingredients. A nutrition lecturer, Putri (2021) stated that ginger is made up of the same contents, it is their essential oil percentage that is different. Ginger essential oil is known for its antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties, and among the three, red ginger has a greater essential oil content therefore it is best for medicinal purposes. For the other, elephant ginger is often used for sweets and pickles, while normal ginger is often used for cooking.

Indonesia is one of the top 5 ginger producers globally in 2022 based on FAO statistics after India, Nigeria, China and Nepal (FAOSTAT 2024). There are 5 main producers of fresh ginger in Indonesia which are West Java, Central Jaca, East Java, North Sumatra and Bengkulu (Annur 2023). However, this huge production of ginger was mostly distributed domestically, and this is supported by World Bank data in 2022 (WITS 2022) which shows that Indonesia ranks 15th amongst ginger exporters all around the world. This low figure is caused by the lack of capable human resource to process those ginger, lack of capital, tight competition with foreign exporters and higher logistics cost (Ariseplus 2022). Nevertheless, the government is not remaining quiet about this and is currently holding several events to increase SME’s insights about exports, so that Indonesian ginger produce could develop further and might enter more export markets.

Ginger Exports itself are not only limited to fresh ginger products only, but producers could process those ginger first and give an added value. As Dr. Rohmah stated in a SEM Webinar (Ariseplus 2022), there are many ways that you could process ginger into dried ginger, powdered ginger, instant ginger drink, to a ginger essential oil to produce a self-staple ginger product. Turning ginger produce into those products could not only help with the shelf-life but also increase the selling price. Using these methods to process the ginger could be tried, as ginger is one of the most popular spices in the world. This is proven by recipes such as gingerbread cookies that are famous in the UK and USA, pickled ginger in Japan, and many other recipes (SBS 2022).

The variety of food that contains ginger shows that ginger has a big market, and truly is a big export prospect for Indonesia. Some of the prospect has been realized in 2023 for example the ginger export contract signed in 2023 from Cirebon exporters to an egypt importer. This project managed to secure the export of 10 20ft containers in three months with the total of 120 Ton that equals to USD 156 thousand or 2.28 Billion Rupiah (Kemendag 2023). Not only from Cirebon, Malang County in East Java Province also managed to secure a 30 containers contract of ginger to Bangladesh, with the approximate weight of 27 Tons ginger per container that cost 405 millions Rupiah (Kemenkeu 2023).

Besides how now the government tried to make everything needed for export easier, there are also many things that could open up Indonesian ginger export overseas, which is organic certificate. This organic certification are essential especially for shipment to western countries, as they are very concerned about this matter. Getting this organic certificate means that the product, in this case ginger, has passed organic qualifications to be called an organic ginger. The qualifications are for not using chemical pesticide and synthetic fertilizer, using a rotating corps system, not using GMO products and making sure that every waste could be recycled as fertilizer or as animal feed (Rinaldi 2022). This organic certifications come in two categories that are local ones just ‘Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture (LEISA)’ and international ones just like SKAL, IFOAM. If you are interested in taking the organic certifications, you could open several website for example [insert link – https://icert.id/sertifikasi-organik/organik-indonesia/) and follow their steps in making those certificate

How was it? Are you interested in exploring this massive prospect of ginger export? Or perhaps there might be some doubts to start exporting because of an unclear process? Contact us to find out more! We are ready to be your advocate and bring you through the export market with compatible price!

Reference
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