Students of the Food Technology Study Program of the 2021 Cohort visited various food industries on May 28 to June 1, 2023. The industries that were visited are located in West Java. Some of the industries that were visited range from large-scale such as PT. Amerta Indah Otsuka and PT. Yakult Indonesia Persada, as well as small-scale micro-enterprises (UMKM) (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises) such as Dodol Garut Picnic and Tahu Susu Lembang. The students were very enthusiastic about this activity.
“This activity is intended to enable students to connect the knowledge they have learned so far with real field conditions. In addition, it is hoped that students will become more interested and learn other food processing processes independently,” said Amalia Wahyuningtyas, who is the head of the Food Technology Study Program at ITERA.
The activity began with a departure carried out in the afternoon on May 28, 2023. The student group was divided into three buses and accompanied by two lecturers on each bus. On the first day, the group visited PT. Amerta Indah Otsuka and PT. Yakult Indonesia Persada, which have nearby locations, namely on Jalan Siliwangi, Sukabumi. At PT. Amerta Indah Otsuka, the students were given an explanation that this company is a company that supports a healthy lifestyle with various products produced by it, such as pocary sweat, soyjoy, fibemini, and others. The students were also invited to tour the production factory located in Sukabumi. Next, the students visited PT. Yakult Indonesia Persada with the flagship product being Yakult, which is a fermented drink. The students were invited to tour the factory where the product is made under sterile conditions to minimize contamination. The students increasingly understood the fermentation process in food products, starting from making seeds until the cold supply chain.
On the second day, the students visited the Dodol Picnic industry located in Garut Regency and Tahu Susu Lembang located in Lembang, Bandung. Dodol Picnic is currently also developing its technology even more, which is visible from the dodol stirrer machine in quite a large number to assist the dodol production process. However, this industry is also still empowering human resources around the industry for its packaging process. At Dodol Garut Picnic, the students not only learned about the production process, but also learned about product innovation and entrepreneurship aspects. Next, the students visited the Tahu Susu Lembang industry. In this industrial area, the students learned the process of making tofu, which is a soybean-based product. In addition, the students could connect the processing process with the food technology knowledge they had learned during campus, such as the protein coagulation process and the heat transfer concept. Hopefully, in the future there will be more food industries to visit (MNU).
