Codafood Will Help Bring Local Culinary Abroad

In the international arena, Indonesian culinary in fact becomes a popular culinary and is considered to have a high-class taste by many people. As proof, two Indonesian specialties namely rendang and nasi goreng were ranked first and second as “The World’s 50 Most Delicious Foods” based on the CNN version.

Although Indonesian cuisine has many fans, unfortunately finding a restaurant/merchant that specializes in Indonesian food/drinks is still quite difficult when abroad. Departing from these conditions, Codafood startups are present by offering services that help culinary industry players in the country to open their businesses internationally.

“We see challenges that arise for brand or product owners in terms of access and limited knowledge of global market interest. Therefore, Codafood is present to bridge the needs of culinary businesses and the target market to be accepted by new consumer targets, namely the global community,” Albert Christo, CEO of Codafood, said.

In addition to helping support the development of culinary business people, Albert said that Codafood has the main vision of introducing more culinary diversity in the country abroad.

“This is also in line with the vision of the Ministry of Tourism which sets five culinary icons as Indonesia’s national food to always be taken in every tourism promotion agenda, namely Soto, Rendang, Nasi Goreng, Sate and Gado-gado,” Albert said.

Concept of Franchising

More clearly related to the services offered, Albert explained that the startup, established in August 2019, adopted a franchise concept business model.

Simply put, Codafood will help connect the typical Indonesian culinary business owners with overseas capital owners who are interested in opening a culinary business branch in their country.

According to Albert, the franchise business model is still very relevant especially if it is used for developing national businesses into the global market.

“The franchise model allows brand owners to efficiently introduce their products, where Codafood will do various curations to adjust the product before it is thrown on the market. The franchise, in this case, has a role to accelerate the spread of standardization so that it can be adopted in other areas by local partners (in the destination country),” Albert explained.

Furthermore, as an initial stage, currently, Codafood has developed its first pilot project, namely opening the first branch of Soto Betawi Bang Rojak in Japan. For information, Bang Rojak Soto Betawi outlet currently has three branches in Indonesia.

Codafood’s efforts to bridge access to Soto Betawi Rojak outlets to prospective target markets in Japan, one of which began withholding food tasting with a number of native Japanese citizens living in Jakarta.

From there, business owners will get a lot of information and input to be able to solidify their steps towards foreign markets. In order to be well received by the Japanese public, the Soto brand name was changed to “Soto Betawi Miyamoto” and is targeted to be opened in the first quarter of 2020.

Albert explained again, as done to Soto Betawi Miyamoto, every brand to be marketed overseas through Codafood also had to go through a curation process first. “In order to be well-received and sustainable, previously it is necessary to do brand sorting, rebranding in accordance with the destination country’s market, adjusting raw materials and food tasting for flavor validation,” Albert said.

Codafood x BRBGKLTR Collaboration

In developing Codafood, Albert revealed that his party collaborated with BRBGKLTR (Berbagi Kultur), which is a digital platform founded by Herjunot Ali (Actor). With the establishment of this collaboration, Herjunot was officially announced as Commissioner at Codafood.

“Berbagi Kultur and Codafood have the same vision and mission of introducing Indonesia’s cultural heritage and maintaining it through a unique and innovative approach. Through Codafood, it is hoped that Indonesia’s culinary variety can penetrate the global market and certainly be a significant contributor to the number of franchises outside Indonesia, which is currently dominated by many foreign players,” Junot said.

As the initial target of this collaboration, Junot targets that in 2020 Codafood can open at least five Indonesian culinary franchises abroad.