PT Mandailing Prima are also providing a coffee bean processing unit to neighboring plantations that fall under our training/management scheme. The local farmer gets a higher price for processed beans than from only the harvested red berry.
Under this service, the farmers can deliver the red berry to the SBU and, for a fixed fee, have the berries processed. For the grower, this yields a higher price for processed coffee beans and a further incentive to prune their trees and grow quality coffee berry. In return, the company has the opportunity to buy processed beans that have already passed initial quality control, resulting in lower risk.
The newly introduced processing unit is a pulping and washing plant which operates using only 5% of the water that would be used in conventional methods. An additional advantage is that the equipment can be installed onto a pickup truck. This technique and equipment was developed in South America and is widely used around the world. In Indonesia, it is only used by a couple of large processors. The larger processors use heavy equipment with a capacity of over 10 tons per hour. We are using a smaller machine, which processes 500kg per hour – enough for smaller plantations.
