PT. Alam Sari Interbuana

(known as PASI)
Our History and Vision

Food is one of human basic needs to survive, and human ways to eat food had evolving from time to time, from prehistoric way to eat raw food directly from nature, to the invention of fire and grilled the food, and from basic daily activities to aristocrat style for dining, and from just full fill the hungry stomach to medicinal way of living. The way human cook their food is keeping evolving to more than its basic purpose. Along with the human evolving ways to cook their food, there also a need of food that tastes better or more delicious, so we start to add condiment to our food ingredients.

The searching of various food ingredients is one reason of the trading activity. In ancient time, we know that traders from European had searching exotic condiment, that could not been growth in their land. They searching until Asia continent. And several of the exotic condiments are growth natively in Indonesia. Among those are Nutmegs, Pepper, Cloves and Cassia Vera.

Historically, Indonesia has been the major source of spices for the Dutch, British and Portuguese traders. And because of seizing the exotic condiment area, so many battles have been occurred for prolonged time, causing many lives lost in their quest and pursuance for these exotic spices, but after all that time it ended with no advantage to native resident who were still live in modest way of living. Until today, Indonesia’s Nutmegs, Pepper, Cloves and Cassia Vera are remain searched by European, and since it famous for their best quality, another part of the world are looking for it too. Until today, the demand volume increased multiple times.

However, exotic spices is delicate products, it is susceptible to climates changes, thus the harvesting such exotic spices required right condition and right time, and our centuries-experienced farmers will ensure it for the best harvested product. Commencing for the vision to export best quality spices, and maintain the product availability to the International market, particularly for the food and medicine industries, PT. Alam Sari Interbuana, struggling to become one of the leading exporter of spices from Indonesia, such as Nutmegs, Cloves, Cassia Vera, Pepper etc.

To achieve our goal, we have dedicated our time, resources and expertise to build a sustainable supply-chain infrastructure through collaboration and cooperation with the farmer, producers and suppliers for each respective commodity. We base our business on friendship-family manner, thus we highly expected to growth together with our farmers, suppliers, local partners, and off course our stakeholder. To express our manner, we often involved directly into the procurement process of requested spices, and in reciprocal, we also educate our farmer, producers & suppliers to meet the specification requested by our clients. As we have did with them, we also able to give our opinion on the specific request by our client base on the real condition of harvested products.

Sourcing and Processing Flow

Sourcing

We adopt a strict and stringent sourcing policy to ensure the quality and consistency of our goods. Various markets have varied requirements that are associated with the importation of food ingredients into the respective markets, particularly on the mycotoxin and micro-organism issues such as the levels of Aflatoxin, Ochratoxin, Salmonella, ecolli etc.

As far as the sourcing of goods is concerned, we have established close collaboration and cooperation with farming communities in several areas, such as North Sulawesi, North Maluku and Maluku being the primary sources for nutmegs, mace and cloves, as well as Bangka, Lampung, East and West Kalimantan for white pepper. While Kerinci and West Sumatera are our primary sources for Cassia Vera. Our primary aim is to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with the main players at the origin in order to obtain a sustainable supply of goods. We also plan to enhance few farming communities to enable them to adopt organic farming practices, hence produce organic goods.

It is, therefore, imperative for an exporter to ensure that all the requirements are met to avoid any rejection to the goods being exported.

PT. Alam Sari Interbuana, adopts a sourcing policy wherein the following criteria have to be met:

Single and traceable source: We do not procure our goods from random collectors or traders. Our goods must be traceable to their origin.
Proper handling of goods: Post-harvest handling by farmers is a crucial factor to ensure the quality of goods. As such, we keep continuous communication with the farmers through our community building
teams who in turn conduct on-site training and supervision to ensure that all post-harvest handling requirements are fulfilled.
Lab Test: Goods that are supplied to us are also tested randomly from time to time at an approved laboratory to ensure consistency in their quality, hence the quality being exported to our buyers.

Processing

The goods that are procured from or supplied by farmers are normally in the form of raw materials. Once the goods are received at our collecting stations, they are then further processed into goods that are ready to be shipped/sold.

An illustration of our processing flow is provided hereunder:

Nutmegs / Pala
The nutmegs procured/received from the farmers, depending on the existing practices, are in the forms of:
a. Nutmegs that are still in shells
b. Nutmegs that have already been cracked

In the case of nutmegs that are still in shells:

1. The goods are selected into at least 3 different categories:
a. Pala A (containing nutmegs above 65%)
b. Pala AT (containing nutmegs around 60% – 63%); and
c. Pala B (containing nutmegs lower than 50%)

2. The goods are then shipped from the origin to PASI’s warehouse in Surabaya to be further processed.

3. Upon arrival of the goods at the warehouse in Surabaya, they are then fumigated to ensure that they remain free from any micro-organism development and do not contaminate the existing stock inventories. The fumigation will take around 3-5 days. Alternatively the fumigation may also be performed during the journey from the origin to Surabaya in the container.

4. The goods will be then cracked through the cracking machine with a maximum cracking capacity of 30 minutes per ton.

5. After being cracked, the goods will undergo the following sortation/selection stages:
a. Stage 1: The goods will be separated from their shells
b. Stage 2: The goods will be selected into 3 categories: ABCD, Shrivels (SS) and BWP
c. Stage 3: The goods will be carefully selected and separated from any defects (if necessary under UV light)

6. Once they have been sorted/selected, the goods will be filled into 25 kg or 50 kg gunny bags and stored in a cool and dry area awaiting for delivery/shipment to buyers.

In the case of nutmegs that have already been cracked, the whole processes as described above are done at the origin under our supervision. Therefore, the finished goods are shipped to Surabaya and only stage 3 of the overall process is conducted in Surabaya.

As regards to the processing of Pepper and Cassia, different techniques are applied due to the nature of the
commodities.