By Heneage Mitchell 

Erick Ibrahim Tanuwihardja
Printing and Packaging
PT Corona Printing Asia

PT Argapura, the parent company to PT Corona Printing Asia, has been doing business since 1954. The company initially supplied cigarette paper for hand rolled cigarettes but expanded into tea packaging products such as filter paper, printed tags, thread and aluminum wire.

The printing side of the business, represented by PT Corona Printing Asia, was started in 2000, and Argapura and Corona are now a preferred supplier of tea tags to Unilever in Indonesia and Australia.

"Our principal product is tea tags," Erick Ibrahim Tanuwihardja, Corona’s general manager, told Tea & Coffee Asia. "We also make tea envelopes, and some customers order both from us, but biggest customer is Unilever and we supply them with tea tags for regional supply."

Argapura’s tea tags can be found on over 15 Unilever brands, including Sariwang tea in Indonesia and Bushells in Australia.

"We also supply some customers in Malaysia and Thailand, and we have the capacity to expand production as we have nine machines available," Tanuwihardja said.

Argapura has established partnerships or alliances with several international companies including Glatfelter (UK); Gutmann and Martin Bauer (Germany); IMA S.p.a (Italy); Mai S.A (Argentina) and Tsubakimoto Kogyo Co., Ltd., (Japan).

To ensure runability and satisfaction, the company needs to know what machines are being used by the customer. IMA, Mai SA, Constanta, Technomechanica and Teamac are all examples of compatible machines. The tags are supplied in rolls and cut on the machines during packaging. Printing on paper is the company’s specialty.

"Any packaging requiring paper is within the company’s scope of expertise," according to Tanuwihardja.

Heat sealed and crimped tea bag envelopes are also manufactured here, and these are provided in sheets.

"All paper is imported from Europe and Australia," Tanuwihardja told us. "Customers supply their specifications and Corona sources suppliers accordingly. The product we supply to Unilever has to have a food grade certificate supplied by the paper mill and approved by Unilever. The same high standards are applied across the board for all our customers."

Suitable food grade, non-toxic inks are only produced by certain accredited suppliers, including Siegwerk and Colorpak.

"We can supply special coatings and lamination, and online punching," Tanuwihardja said. "All parameters specified by customer can be provided. Punch holes can be of any size or shape, consistent throughout the print run."

To ensure consistency across a production run requires constant attention to detail, and Argapura and Corona follow very high standards throughout the production process of all the products it manufactures.

"Quality control is very tight," Tanuwihardja confirmed. "Dealing with multi-national companies, the quality has to be second to none, especially when the product is required to run on high speed machines."

Competition in the segment is fierce, with India, Sri Lanka, Korea and China all offering similar products. Quality and customer satisfaction therefore rank high in the standards set by Argapura and Corona, and these are the reasons behind its success today.

Stephen Santoso
Bean and leaf extracts
PT Haldin Pacific Semesta

Haldin is a natural extract company. Its core products are tea and coffee extracts, and Haldin is Indonesia’s premier supplier.

The market for tea and coffee extracts is continuing to increase, with the popularity of RTD tea and coffee drinks fuelling the growth.

And Haldin is certainly benefiting from the trend.

"We add value to coffee beans and tea leaves compared to traditional bulk sales," Stephen Santoso, Haldin’s business and partnership development manager told Tea & Coffee Asia. "We sell to over 30 countries. We work with multi-national companies, and we were the first company to attain three ISO certifications in Indonesia [1001, 14000 and 22000]." These certifications speak volumes about the company’s outlook and its experience.

"We were the first and the oldest company doing tea extracts in Indonesia," Santoso said. "We employ advanced technology, comparable with Japan and Australia."

Haldin prefers to source locally for coffee and tea to fulfill domestic and international demand. The tea plantations of West Java are close to Haldin’s production facilities.

"Our raw materials are 100% locally sourced," said Santoso. "It is all bought from auctions. We have some customers that require organic, fair trade or halal certifications, for example. We have a department dedicated to sourcing raw materials, and some of our personnel help farmers to get better quality to ensure the raw materials reach our standards. It’s not easy to keep maintaining the quality, so we have to work with farmers in an ongoing program to ensure consistency and continuity."

Thanks to the growing popularity of RTD tea products, Indonesia is a very good tea extracts market. "Haldin is number one in the domestic market, and we are trying hard to expand business outside of the country, and doing pretty well," said Santoso.

Haldin is looking to do business with the top five companies in existing markets. Its products are aimed primarily at food and beverage segments and secondarily at flavors and fragrances sectors.

"Malaysia is a large tea extract consumer, so we are trying to attract this business rather than creating demand in an undeveloped market," according to Santoso.

Andreas Dharyasa
Tea Bags and Coffee Pods
PT. Sukses Makmur International

Sukses Makmur International (SMI) specializes in tea bags and coffee pods and has already made an impact on the domestic tea and coffee manufacturing industry. As a growing company in an established field, SMI brings a high degree of competence to the table. SMI has won appointments as the Indonesian local distributor for Ahlstrom, Elisental aluminum wire, G. Rossi pod machines and many other teabag packaging materials. The company also works with an Indonesian spare parts manufacturer for IMA C21 and C23 machines.

SMI aims to develop its business with Indonesian companies using its expertise and high-quality product range as its chief selling points.

"From the principal’s point of view, we already have the market, the network and the expertise but we only work with the best companies supplying the best quality in the industry," Dharyasa told Tea & Coffee Asia. "A company who wants to find an alternative supplier or to develop a new product will find an experienced team ready to provide the right solutions."

Ahlstrom has successfully expanded their tea bag and coffee market in Indonesia, since its liaison with SMI. "I must admit that Ahlstrom has always proven its top quality product to the market," he said.

Dharyasa values customer input highly as a mechanism to ensure customer satisfaction. "We received inputs from customers to develop new types of products, such as nylon and nonwoven material for triangle bags, and as a result of this Ahlstrom responded quickly". The latest offering from Ahlstrom is a non-woven bio-degradable corn-based fiber which satisfies consumer demand for environmentally-friendly products and steeping characteristics and manufacturers’ runability and cost requirements.

SMI is also collaborating with Elisental, a German manufacturer producing high quality and competitively priced aluminum staple for tea bags. As a result, Elisental has regained its market share in Indonesia. Their products are perfectly compatible with IMA, Constanta, Perfecta and HST machines.

The coffee pod segment, although currently minor, is another area of potential growth for SMI. We are working closely with Gino Rossi for Indonesia market. Gino Rossi is a leading manufacturer of coffee pods packaging machine in the world. "SMI has created the synergy between Gino Rossi and Ahlstrom in Indonesia, since Ahlstrom also provides coffee pods filter paper for Gino Rossi packaging machine" said Dharyasa. "Those who are looking to export coffee pods to countries where pods are popular can now source top quality solutions from SMI to ensure complete acceptability in first-world markets."

"It is SMI’s goal to become a one-stop supplier for all tea bag and coffee pods components in Indonesia and to supply only the highest-quality solutions to manufacturers," Dharyasa told us. "Additionally, SMI is committed to promoting coffee pods technology in Indonesia and to continue to work with the tea and coffee industries to develop domestic and international markets for high quality processed Indonesian tea and coffee products."