Market of Indonesian Virgin Coconut Oil

Abstract

Coconuts are tropical plants that can be found in Indonesia. Over the past five years, Indonesian coconut plants produce about 3.1 million tons per year. The majority of coconut plantations are smallholder’s plants. Coconut plants had a lot of production in the past, but a few people who using coconuts as processed products. Processed product of coconuts has a high sales value which one of them is Virgin Coconut Oil (VCO). VCO is very easy to produce even by the household scale, but it is only a few of community that produce VCO. This is because the community is not able to know the market. VCO market is very large. VCO which has functions as drugs capable of treating HIV-AIDS disease, Diabetes Mellitus, and Cancer which are diseases that affects many people in Indonesia. In addition, cosmetic needs in Indonesia increase and the people begin selective for choosing cosmetics. The situation is also happened by many countries in the world, so that the VCO export market is still open in overseas too. With the advantages of raw materials from tropical climate, Indonesia should be able to get the high value of the VCO.