Heaptalk, Jakarta — Indonesia’s Association of Soft Drink Industry (Asrim) reported that the performance of the industry during the post-COVID-19 pandemic still demonstrated negative results. The industry remains struggling, and even will encounter a downtrend in 2024.
The Chairman of Asrim, Triyon Prijosoesilo, during the press conference, stated that the industry has grown by 3.1 percent year on year. However, this result is contributed by the demand for bottled water. He added, “The bad result can be seen from the soft drinks sales performance. Besides the bottled water, the other soft drink sales experienced negative growth of 2.6 percent in 2023.”
He added that this poor result is driven by the increase in inflation who affected the society’s purchasing power. The enhancement of logistics cost as well as the spike of raw material and the geopolitics condition also contributed to this issue. The long drought which resulted in crop failure affected to the raw material price and also severed this condition.
“Based on Indonesian Statistics (BPS) data, the average price of rice in the first week of February 2024 escalates by 0.93% compared to the previous month, and in the second week this month, it jumps by 1.65% compared to January 2024,” Triyono said in a statement.
Regarding the positive trend of bottled water, he explained that this condition happened because of the Indonesian habit who loves to consume bottled water. As a tropical country who do not adopt tap drinking water system massively, the country also has great potential in this industry.
In response to this report, the Director of Drink, Tobacco products, and Refreshing Ingredients, the Ministry of Industry, Merrijantij Punguan Pintaria voiced, “Perceiving its tremendous contribution to our economy, the government will strive to drive the revival of this industry through our various program.”She continued, ”(We have) f&b exhibition program in the country and abroad, restructuration of the machine, also driving the distribution of fiscal incentives such as tax holiday, tax allowance, and super deduction tax, and promoting digital transformation 4.0.”
