Cheese making supplies

steveandpenny

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Hey guys does anyone know where one can get cheese making stuff such as rennet? Want to try my hand at mozzarella and maybe feta. Will be in Jakarta the 20th . I haven't been able to find any thing here in Manado. Oh and cheese cloth.. thanks
 
Hey guys does anyone know where one can get cheese making stuff such as rennet? Want to try my hand at mozzarella and maybe feta. Will be in Jakarta the 20th . I haven't been able to find any thing here in Manado. Oh and cheese cloth.. thanks
You wouldn't find any cheese making stuff in Manado but you can have decent mozzarella in blocks of 3,5 kg at an affordable price. Heck you can even have Australian camembert, cheddar and brie for about 20% less than what Hypermart sells them if you contact the right person.
 
20% cheaper than Hypermart is still 50% too expensive... I see cheese from Denmark as well priced more than 400% higher than in Denmark.. it is really crazy.. Like fresh milk in Denmark which is less than 24 hours from the cow to the shop cost only 30% of what so called "fresh milk" cost here in the supermarkets.. and I still wonder why
 
and I still wonder why
Import taxes and corruption is perhaps the explanation. Same could be said for wine and spirits. I am often amazed to find out that a bottle which would be sold EUR 2 or EUR 3 at most in a french supermarket and would be nothing more than a cheap choice for sauce for whoever has some respect for his/her liver being marketed here at Rp 300.000+ if bought by carton from an importer.
One has the choice in between bitching, saying that it is too expensive and finally abstaining because whatever one says one would not find such goods at a price anywhere close to what they can be found outside Indonesia or trying to source it at the lowest cost directly from the importer. I do the latter.
 
Like fresh milk in Denmark which is less than 24 hours from the cow to the shop cost only 30% of what so called "fresh milk" cost here in the supermarkets.. and I still wonder why
For your information the dairy cattle in Denmark and Indonesia is approximately the same (slightly more in Indonesia with a bit more than 500.000 heads against a bit less than 500.000 for Denmark) however the quality of the milk produced and quantity of milk produced is hugely different, leaving most brands selling "fresh milk" in Indonesia dealing with imported milk.
 
I think that corruption IS human greediness, doesn't it?

I was referring more into direction of business owners greediness and specifically to what is left in their pocket after tax and paying bribes. You see not only the gov officials are greedy.
 
You wouldn't find any cheese making stuff in Manado but you can have decent mozzarella in blocks of 3,5 kg at an affordable price. Heck you can even have Australian camembert, cheddar and brie for about 20% less than what Hypermart sells them if you contact the right person.

So all I need to do is find the right person (haha)
But really want to try my hand at cheese making, already done the dill pickle thing and mmmm.
 
I was referring more into direction of business owners greediness and specifically to what is left in their pocket after tax and paying bribes. You see not only the gov officials are greedy.
Sorry to say but this makes little sense when it comes to the cheese example we discuss in the thread.

Heck even Hypermart mark up hardly allows them a profit. Their mark up is about 35% with which they have to cover transportation cost, storage cost (it's a chilled product), loss of perishable goods...etc. if I go to the cheese shelf of any of the 3 hypermart of my city, many of the cheeses are discounted because they are ageing with only a few weeks or days left before expiration and regularly a sizable part of their stock is destroyed/dimusnahkan.

What is left in Hypermart pocket out of the price of cheese is far less than the size of taxes alone. When you see the poor diversity which is on offer, it gives you an indication about the fact that despite their 35% mark up they don't do good money. If they would, the shelf would be full and very diverse. Cheese is definitely not a fast moving item popular in Indonesian culinary culture. So don't be surprised that it costs you an arm and a leg. If there would me so much money to make about it, you wouldn't have to chase it to find it.

There is no surprise to me that the markup for a block of Kraft or Prochiz "cheddar", which are manufactured locally, are extensively used in Indonesian "pastry" and have the added advantage that you can use them to stop a roof leak for example, is very different than the one of an imported cheese which will stand in the shelf for days or weeks before being sold simply because it caters to a very tiny niche market .

I am sure that you realize that you can't have the same mark up for a cheese which is an highly perishable good requiring a proper chilled storage and a pack of tissue which may leave an eternity in a warehouse. When it comes to chilled or frozen goods you need to be prepared to invest dozen of millions in investment for a cold room (mine, which is not overly huge has costed me almost Rp 200 millions, transportation and installation included) and costs me millions in operating cost every month. We are not talking about the household fridge here. My warehouse for dry goods costs me far less in maintenance.

Also when you are pointing at an alleged business owner greediness let me ask you a question. I suppose that, like most of us, you value your time and work and estimate it to a certain amount. Believe it or not but I guess that these business owner also do and, if I am not happy with their supposed greediness nothing forbids me to take some of my highly valued time to source the product I want to have for a better price. If it exists of course. If not, well, that's the market rule. I am free to abstain or to be smart as Steveandpenny is, and produce my own.
 
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So all I need to do is find the right person (haha)
But really want to try my hand at cheese making, already done the dill pickle thing and mmmm.
Did you grow dills? I would be very interested to have a look at them if you did. I've tried to grow a couple of different species but results were poor. I also admit that I may have not put the efforts required to get decent results. Anyway, at the moment I have a 4 kg tin of french dills to finish so there is no hurry here. :smile:

I now have a gardener who is incredibly active and knowledgeable so I may try again. He has converted more than 1 hectare of land around the house in productive land and we keep on trying new stuff. We are trying to grow fresh parsley, coriander and a few other herbs and I am eager to see if we can do it with acceptable results.

For cheese and other fine foods, I'll email you later. If I forget, just remind me when we see each others.
 
I see cheese from Denmark as well priced more than 400% higher than in Denmark.. it is really crazy..
Are you talking about Castello cheeses from Arla? Have you tried to contact a distributor rather than looking at the supermarket? If it is Castello cheese (and lurpak products) you are interested in I have the contact of the importer in Jakarta. You perhaps can see with them if they have a distributor close by you.
Distributors don't retail by pieces but by cartons but considering that castello cheeses have a rather "long" shelf life (it's about 11 months when it reaches Indonesia for most Castello stuff) it may be worth considering if you are home sick.
 
Sorry to say but this makes little sense when it comes to the cheese example we discuss in the thread.
....

Also when you are pointing at an alleged business owner greediness let me ask you a question. I suppose that, like most of us, you value your time and work and estimate it to a certain amount. Believe it or not but I guess that these business owner also do and, if I am not happy with their supposed greediness nothing forbids me to take some of my highly valued time to source the product I want to have for a better price. If it exists of course. If not, well, that's the market rule. I am free to abstain or to be smart as Steveandpenny is, and produce my own.

I have to start write more to be more specific.... I was talking here about your 2euro->300000 idr for bottle of wine example. I cannot understand how in Malaysia in supermarket a bottle of wine can be 100 000 idr while in Indonesia it is 300 000 idr.

This is all nice what you said and you are probably right. I do realise that every business owner wants to have some reward for what they do - that is perfectly fine. But the situations where the business owner is "the only distributor" and can dictate prices as he wants have little to do with what you said about operation costs. To be more transparent I am talking here about monopolies. Oh and to be specific - I am not only talking about cheese here as I know very little about diary business here in Indonesia - I am talking in general.
 
I have to start write more to be more specific.... I was talking here about your 2euro->300000 idr for bottle of wine example. I cannot understand how in Malaysia in supermarket a bottle of wine can be 100 000 idr while in Indonesia it is 300 000 idr.
Import taxes and import legislation are a whole different in Malaysia than they are in Indonesia. In Indonesia duties are charged at 150% of the market price for most spirits while they are at 90% for wine, something unheard of in Malaysia.
Level of duties have been again recently (mid 2015) modified and drastically increased by around 150% after successive gradual hikes in the period 2009 to 2014. This is what explains the ridiculous level of price today. As if it wouldn't be enough bear in mind that there is VAT added this and an excise tax calculated on the content of alcohol. Last, there may have regional levies in some region. And this is before talking about bribes that sellers are subjected to since most of them have no license to sell alcohol.


To be more transparent I am talking here about monopolies. Oh and to be specific - I am not only talking about cheese here as I know very little about diary business here in Indonesia - I am talking in general.
Monopolies? In the wine and spirit sector there are no monopoly and I would be curious to hear about what monopolies you refer to in the F&B industry?
For the record, there is now more than 7 years that state owned PT Sarinah has no more monopoly on the importation of wine and spirit and you have multiples importers such as Belgo Buana Cipta, Pantja Artha Niaga, Dimatique, Bogacitra Nusapratama, PT SMS. and many more.
 
Import taxes and import legislation are a whole different in Malaysia than they are in Indonesia. In Indonesia duties are charged at 150% of the market price for most spirits while they are at 90% for wine, something unheard of in Malaysia.
Level of duties have been again recently (mid 2015) modified and drastically increased by around 150% after successive gradual hikes in the period 2009 to 2014. This is what explains the ridiculous level of price today. As if it wouldn't be enough bear in mind that there is VAT added this and an excise tax calculated on the content of alcohol. Last, there may have regional levies in some region. And this is before talking about bribes that sellers are subjected to since most of them have no license to sell alcohol.


Monopolies? In the wine and spirit sector there are no monopoly and I would be curious to hear about what monopolies you refer to in the F&B industry?
For the record, there is now more than 7 years that state owned PT Sarinah has no more monopoly on the importation of wine and spirit and you have multiples importers such as Belgo Buana Cipta, Pantja Artha Niaga, Dimatique, Bogacitra Nusapratama, PT SMS. and many more.

I totally agree with your first paragraph. I am sorry to derail this thread. But yes in Indonesia there is still a big problem with monopolies, cartels, price fixing ect.

The second paragraph:
This one maybe?
http://www.agriculture.com/content/...ilty-of-cartel-practices-anti-monopoly-agency

I didn't want to spent to much time digging on the internet so I found this (it is not F&B business):
[url]http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/07/26/indonesia-urged-to-combat-logistics-transportation-sector-monopolies.html[/URL]
 
I totally agree with your first paragraph. I am sorry to derail this thread. But yes in Indonesia there is still a big problem with monopolies, cartels, price fixing ect.

The second paragraph:
This one maybe?
http://www.agriculture.com/content/...ilty-of-cartel-practices-anti-monopoly-agency

I didn't want to spent to much time digging on the internet so I found this (it is not F&B business):
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/...gistics-transportation-sector-monopolies.html
You realize that the first link is not about monopoly per se which is the "exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service". In other words a monopoly is a situation where a sole company controls almost all or in totality a sector or a product. The case here is about cartel practices among 32 cattle companies which as a whole do not control the sector, far from it. Furthermore you certainly have noticed that it gives little details about what they have been doing exactly.

I am curious to here how, as a consumer, the cartel practices among these 32 importers of beef cattle has impacted you negatively? This is a serious question. Have you been, as a consumer, a victim of this particular case while shopping for a living beef for breeding (indukan) or fattening? Or victim of any other known case of alleged price fixing or is this just an assumption on general practices? Not that I try to minor the nastiness of cartel practices but I am a bit surprise by your links. I thought you would come up with live examples on you having been a victim of cartel practices since you stated that it is a big problem in Indonesia.

Googleing links is easy but you should make sure that they are about a binding decision. For the record, many of the companies fined by KPPU in your link, including PT Elders Indonesia have appealed the decision.

You are also not naive and you can't ignore the fact that cartel practices exists EVERYWHERE in the world and is not a rare occurrence, including in your and my native country. Nothing specific to Indonesia here or specific to the F&B industry in Indonesia. It is very hard to fight against and to prove but believing that a country is exempt of these practices would be totally naive. I would even say that the more developed the market is, the more the actors are prone to resort to cartel practices.

A link above cartel practices in Europe and the USA:

http://globalinvestigationsreview.com/insight/the-investigations-review-of-the-americas-2016/1024336/cross-border-overview-international-cartel-investigations-united
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/speeches/text/sp2013_09_en.pdf

For the record, Indonesia has been one of the first nation in ASEAN to pass (in 1999) a Law on Competition and against monopolies and cartel practices. Indonesia is certainly not rid of problems of commercial malpractices but depicting it as black goat would be unfair.

In fact a recent report from UNCTAD (United Nations Committee on Trade and Development) was mentioning that most competition problems in Indonesia stem from Government actions rather than private/companies actions.

Second link in your post has definitively nothing to do with the F&B industry but illustrate perfectly my above paragraph.
 
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Sorry to say but this makes little sense when it comes to the cheese example we discuss in the thread.

Heck even Hypermart mark up hardly allows them a profit. Their mark up is about 35% with which they have to cover transportation cost, storage cost (it's a chilled product), loss of perishable goods...etc. if I go to the cheese shelf of any of the 3 hypermart of my city, many of the cheeses are discounted because they are ageing with only a few weeks or days left before expiration and regularly a sizable part of their stock is destroyed/dimusnahkan.

What is left in Hypermart pocket out of the price of cheese is far less than the size of taxes alone. When you see the poor diversity which is on offer, it gives you an indication about the fact that despite their 35% mark up they don't do good money. If they would, the shelf would be full and very diverse. Cheese is definitely not a fast moving item popular in Indonesian culinary culture. So don't be surprised that it costs you an arm and a leg. If there would me so much money to make about it, you wouldn't have to chase it to find it.

There is no surprise to me that the markup for a block of Kraft or Prochiz "cheddar", which are manufactured locally, are extensively used in Indonesian "pastry" and have the added advantage that you can use them to stop a roof leak for example, is very different than the one of an imported cheese which will stand in the shelf for days or weeks before being sold simply because it caters to a very tiny niche market .

I am sure that you realize that you can't have the same mark up for a cheese which is an highly perishable good requiring a proper chilled storage and a pack of tissue which may leave an eternity in a warehouse. When it comes to chilled or frozen goods you need to be prepared to invest dozen of millions in investment for a cold room (mine, which is not overly huge has costed me almost Rp 200 millions, transportation and installation included) and costs me millions in operating cost every month. We are not talking about the household fridge here. My warehouse for dry goods costs me far less in maintenance.




that's exactly explained to us when we complained on how expensive cheeses in Indonesia to a friend, a manager of one of carefour outlet in Indonesia.
or when grumbled to him not being able to find my favourite cheese extra vieille mimolette in any carefor in Jakarta
when we lived in KZ, we complain for paying tofu 1000% more expensive than in Indonesia, not able to find tempe anywhere in the country. (fortunately, making tofu is not difficult though for tempe we need to buy more powerfull humidifier)
here In Cairo, again, we complain for medium size of durian cost us more than USD 100, or how poor (and expensive) the quality of canned milk for making rendang.
 
I thought it's interesting that when Sarinah was the only alcoholic beverage importer, wine prices were much more reasonable than it is now (yes, at that time it was without the 150% tax AND the dollar was not as strong).

I was at Carrefour MOI last week and it always amazes me that now..in 2017 we have more Indonesian winery/(pseudo) Brand than back in 2012...Artisan, Plaga, Cape Discovery, Hatten, Sabbabay, etc. but yet the wine section at Carrefour only has imported wines...some with prices up to 2 million rupiah. Definitely not the right target market for it. I wonder what kind of politics behind the unavailability of Indonesian wines there. I can almost guarantee it if they had Indonesian wines as 70% of the offering (and maybe 30% of mixed imports up to 500,000 rp), people would buy more and it helps Indonesian beverage industry...but then again, probably Mister Habbib Noisy might not agree.
 
I thought it's interesting that when Sarinah was the only alcoholic beverage importer, wine prices were much more reasonable than it is now (yes, at that time it was without the 150% tax AND the dollar was not as strong).
It is were all the hypocrisy of the government resides. Yes, they have accepted to dismantle the monopoly of State owned Sarinah which was earning them billions in revenue... but they have replaced it by a laughable level of duties and excises and increasingly drastic regulations concerning the sales of alcohol.
 

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