photo: An Indonesian restaurant with rustic furniture and decor
Indonesia with a population of 265 million people, has witnessed an almost three fold increase in per capita incomes (from US$1213 in 2005 to US$3475 in 2016) in 11 years. The improvement in incomes, coupled with the rapid expansion of the middle-income groups (from 37 per cent of the total population in 2004 to 57 per cent in 2016), have helped to underpin the expansion of the food service industry. Indonesia’s HRI (hotel, restaurant and institutional) sector is extremely diverse, ranging from high-end hotels and restaurants that serve local and international cuisines, fast food outlets, cafes and bars, bakeries to the low-end small scale restaurants. Road-side restaurants are known as warungs or street vendors.
The growth in the food service industry has led to the robust demand in Indonesia for imported Western consumer-oriented foods as well as Japanese and Korean products, fuelled by the growth of Western style fast food restaurants including Japanese and Korean restaurants throughout the major urban areas of Indonesia. In addition, the steady growth in tourist arrivals (11.5 million in 2016), increase in meetings, conferences and exhibitions are significant drivers for more high quality imported food products. These factors have collectively contributed to the demand for imported foods included imported poultry, beef, seafood, delicatessen products, fresh fruit, frozen potatoes and vegetables, bakery ingredients, juices, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and dairy products.
Despite the dominant presence of road stalls and vendors which offer lower priced local meals, fast food outlets continue to experience strong growth. Fast food and quick-serve meal restaurants include A & W, Burger King, California Fried Chicken, Carl’s Junior, Fat Burger, KFC, McDonald’s, MOS Burger, Pizza Hut and Wendy’s as well as pizza restaurants like Domino’s Pizza, Pizza Hut and Pizza Marzano.
Indonesia has also a unique home delivery system with the use of motorcycle taxis to deliver food to households. “Go-jek” is a motorcycle network that provides quick low cost food delivery through Jakarta’s gridlocked traffic. The implementation of this efficient system of placing food orders from restaurants has helped generate additional business volumes for the food service industry.
An array of side dishes in Rijstaffel cuisine for each diner
Reference: USDA GAIN Report-Indonesia Food Service-Hotel Restaurant Institutional Update