Government has made various efforts to ensure the availability and fair distribution of food in Indonesia. However, the difficult access to some remote areas and natural disasters still become hurdles in distributing food. This concern makes government need to come up with new innovations to ensure food resilience so that Indonesia does not only depend on rice. Taking part in the effort of supporting food resilience, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia (AJCUI) once again held the Food Festival 2019 to showcase food innovation from their students.
The theme of this year’s festival was “Food for Life Survival”. It showcased 12 food products created by 4th year students from two disciplines, biology and food technology. Through the theme, AJCUI wanted to present some fast food options which could fulfill energy needs. The food innovations were expected to be useful during disasters or easy to bring to areas with difficult access to food, such as camping sites or remote areas. “The main aim of this program is to give opportunities for students to apply their knowledge of food technology so that they can create innovative products. Of course it can also answer the challenge of food resilience in Indonesia,” said Diana Lestari, S.Gz., M.Si., a lecturer of Faculty of Biotechnology.
According to Diana, this program was also a training program for students to think out-of-the-box and innovatively to prepare them for entering working world. Students were expected to use various food ingredients existing in Indonesia.
The Food Festival is an annual event of Atma Jaya Faculty of Biotechnology. This activity gives opportunities for students to present ready-to-sell food products. All food products will be assessed based on the innovative values and nutrition values. Some food products that were presented in 2019’s festival were: Mee-luck (noodles made from brown rice which holds hunger longer with sauce inspired from laksa tangerang), Cobaco (pasta made from chocolate and banana, ready-to-eat just as it is, as jam or as chocolate milk), and Nutcrookies (cookies made from red bean and walnuts; two ingredients commonly found in Indonesia)
This event also invited Coach Mike from Survival Skills Indonesia and Dr. dr. Tan Shot Yen, M.Hum., a nutritionist and philosopher, as speakers in the talkshow. This event also celebrated the 17th birthday of Atma Jaya Faculty of Biotechnology. Currently, all learning activities have been conducted at Campus 3, BSD since 2017.
Atma Jaya Faculty of Biotechnology is supported by 27 laboratories, such as DNA Technological Lab, Food Processing Lab, Food Microbiology Lab, Food Molecular Lab, Cell and Tissue Culture, and Business Incubator. Through existing facilities and curriculum, the faculty wants to contribute to diseases treatment and prevention, efficient production technique development, agriculture development, environmentally-friendly and economical products, reduction of unrenewable resource dependency, recycling technique improvement, and pollution prevention.