Rebranding Tempe from Traditional Food to be More Acceptable for the 21st Century Consumers

• Published in: Annals of nutrition and metabolism 2019-01, Vol.75, p.7
• Main Authors: Astawan, Made, Maskar, Dadi Hidayat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Consumer behavior; Consumption; Cooking; Cultural resources; Food; Food safety; Functional foods & nutraceuticals; Households; Hygiene; Industrial safety; Markets; Nutrition; Sanitation; Shelf life; Soy sauce; Tofu; Traditional foods
• ISSN: 0250-6807; 1421-9697
• DOI: 10.1159/000501751

Tempe is an Indonesian traditional food widely known and consumed across generations. As a functional food, tempe has various nutritional and health benefits, as published in many scientific journals. According to The National Economic Survey (Survei Ekonomi Nasional/Susenas) 2009, tempe, tofu and sweet soy sauce were consumed by 69.89%, 63.72% and 42.5% of households in Indonesia respectively, indicating an overall high consumption. This is especially so for tempe, where an average 30 gr/person of daily consumption was reported (Statistics Indonesia, 2014). Furthermore, the potential market for tempe is not for domestic only, there is a great opportunity for regional and international market. Currently, majority of the tempe consumed are produced by household-level small industries, a unique feature in Indonesia. There are several challenges faced by the Small and Medium-scale (SMEs) Tempe Industries in Indonesia. Among one of the key challenge is food safety issues due to limited knowledge of the producers on principles of food safety, hygiene and sanitation in their tempe production. The Indonesia Tempe Forum (FTI) is a nonprofit organization was established in 2008 with mission to improve world public understanding on tempe as a main commodity in health and business perspective. Some of the highlight activities that have been carried out by the ITF in the framework of rebranding tempe: (1) established of Rumah Tempe Indonesia as a centre of excellence for tempe production through the application of Good Manufacturing Practices, (2) introduced products' diversification which are more attractive and have longer shelf life, (3) disseminated of researches results about tempe's health beneficial effect through academic meetings, (4) conducted tempe culinary demo and cooking competition for women's groups and high school students, (5) facilitated researchers from both Indonesia and foreign countries who are willing to comprehensively study and observe cases about tempe, (6) disseminated Indonesian National Standard and Regional Standard for Tempe (CODEX STAN 313R-2013) to the producers, (7) determined 6th June as an "National Tempe Day", (8) initiated the establishment of TempeLand as the first and the only edutainment that delivers messages and information about tempe in an informative and interactive way, (9) proposed tempe as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity to UNESCO. With all of those various activities, tempe and its derivative products will