INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta- The high growth of the food industry sector should be responded quickly in the face of global market competition. Implementation of food product standards, from the production process, to product packaging and labeling must be met by industry players.

"Today, the modern market has adopted minimum packaging standards to be met by industry players before they can market their products there, not to mention the tight packaging standards adopted by developed countries such as the United States, Europe and some developed Asian countries such as Japan and Korea, "said Director General of Small and Medium Industry (IKM) of the Ministry of Industry, Gati Wibawaningsih on the 'Focus Group Discussion (FGD) Issues and Solution Package for SMEs' at Kemenperin Office, Jakarta, Friday (15/12/2017).

She added that these countries are the main export destination of Indonesian food products. "Therefore, the standard must be met to secure the marketing of Indonesian food products there," he explained.

According to her, one of the weaknesses of IKM entrepreneurs in improving competitiveness is the lack of access to improve the quality of product packaging.

In fact, besides serving or packaging products, packaging also has a function of protection against packaged products and can also serve as a means of promotion and information of these products and play an important role to improve the image, selling power and product competitiveness, "added Gati.

However, in an effort to improve the quality of packaging, IKM entrepreneurs are hit by various constraints, including the selection of packaging materials in accordance with their products, the availability of the necessary packaging, the bottleneck due to the minimum order limit on the packaging manufacturers, the selection and availability of packaging machinery and equipment and and IKM knowledge of Food Processing.

Not to mention the many types of packaging machine products available on the market with different functions and uses. "This is a problem for the perpetrators of IKM in an effort to improve the quality of packaging products," said Gati.

The government has established many packaging houses that aim to become an information center and packaging service for SMEs to solve the packaging problems encountered.

"This information center also serves as a consultation unit on packaging as well as a place of packaging services that can be accessed by SME actors and can provide packaging for IKM in accordance with the needs," she said.

The IKM Directorate General also understands the problems faced by IKM actors in terms of packaging these products. Therefore, since 2003, the Directorate General of IKM has established a public service unit, the Packaging and Brand Design Development Clinic that facilitates IKM entrepreneurs to improve packaging quality by providing packaging design development services for IKM products, primarily IKM food products in order to increase the value added IKM products.

"Until the year 2017 has assisted 6998 packaging design, 7396 brand design and assistance in the form of print packaging provided to 351 IKM," added Gati.

The existing packaging houses are mostly located in the Province, and if present in the District or Town capacity is not sufficient to meet market demands for good packaging products.

"Most packaging houses do not have good standard of service and management, if any, each packing house still has not applied the same standard with each other," she concluded.