Ida Padwa Deriving Value from Bintuni Bay Shrimp and Crab

Kompas/Harry Susilo

Ida Padwa, shows processed shrimp and crab products from Bintuni Bay at her home in East Bintuni District, Bintuni Bay, West Papua.

Thanks to the expanse of mangroves with a total area of 257,468 hectares, the waters of Bintuni Bay are home to shrimp and crabs. However, do not expect to easily find seafood restaurants or cafés there. There are no shops selling gifts typical of this “Green Pearl” regency on roadsides either, especially those offering snacks made of shrimp and crab.

Ida Padwa, 41, makes snacks using seafood from Bintuni Bay. But it is not easy to find Ida because she has no shop, nor social media account with which to offer her products.

Ida and her family live in Argosigemerai village, East Bintuni district, West Papua. Ida’s shrimp and crab snacks are produced in a building painted yellow with a pyramidal roof, measuring some 3 by 5 meters. The house and kitchen are separated by an open space.

There is no display window because Ida only produces snacks when she receives orders. In the production of shrimp and crab snacks, Ida is assisted by one of her children. The snacks, in the form of breadsticks and tortillas, are prepared with oil fueled stoves. No artificial preservatives are used.

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Ida has set the price at Rp 10,000 per pack for neighbors and residents of Bintuni Bay. Each package contains a portion of 85 grams. For customers outside Bintuni Bay, she sells the snacks for Rp 15,000 to Rp 25,000 per pack of 100 g, with no price difference between the breadsticks and tortillas made of shrimp or crab.

As the production is based on orders, there are no leftovers when Ida makes breadsticks and tortillas. She has the capacity of producing 200 packs in two days. Her monthly turnover is more than Rp 5 million on average.

Yet the profit Ida earns per month is only around Rp 500,000. Most of her customers are limited to Manokwari, Tambrauw and Sorong in West Papua, as well as Biak and Jayapura in Papua.

Nevertheless, Ida is convinced that the shrimp and crab snack business in the area has room to grow. This goes along with the brand name for her products: Sfandoya.

“Sfandoya is [a word in] the Biak language for something small that is transformed into another thing of greater significance,” said Ida when visited in her house in April 2021. Ida’s family and husband come from Biak.

Initial move

The establishment of Sfandoya began with Ida’s concern over the lack of utilization of the shrimp and crab in Bintuni Bay. Kompas experienced difficulty finding an eatery that offered shrimp or crab, and Ida recounted that residents were reluctant to sell shrimp dishes because of the very high prices of the crustacean on the market, Rp 110,000 to Rp 120,000 per kilogram.

Her business continued to grow, prompting the local social empowerment office to assist in the procurement of kitchen implements.

The chance to promote shrimp and crab opened when Ida joined a snack-making training program organized by the Bintuni Bay regency administration in 2015. It served as Ida’s impetus to change shrimps and crabs into breadsticks and tortillas. Her business continued to grow, prompting the local social empowerment office to assist in the procurement of kitchen implements.

Bank Indonesia’s West Papua Representative Office also noticed Ida’s venture. The bank several times ordered Sfandoya snacks and helped purchase production equipment, including a grinding machine and dough molds.

KOMPAS/HARRY SUSILO

Ida Padwa is making cystic snacks from shrimp and crab in front of her house in Teluk Bintuni Regency, West Papua Province, Monday (19/4/2021).

Ida has several times been assigned by the Bintuni Bay regency administration to guide trainees of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Ida was also named to represent Bintuni Bay MSMEs in various exhibitions outside West Papua from 2016 to 2019. She has visited Lombok (West Nusa Tenggara), Padang (West Sumatra), Aceh and Bengkulu.

“I went to these places for the first time,” she said.

As an expression of her gratitude, Ida has often helped fundraise for nearby churches through her breadstick and tortilla sales. In these charitable endeavors, she makes no profit.

Sharing skill

Ida aspires to help a lot more women in Bintuni Bay begin producing snacks so that the areas inhabitants can be better off. She may not always remain in the regency as her husband could be assigned to another region at any time.

She has shared her breadstick and tortilla making skills by inviting women living nearby to help her in the production process. “Several Muslim women are also interested in being trained,” said the chair of the Indonesian Christian Church Women’s Association, Ebenhaezer Sigerau.

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Since starting her business in 2015, Ida has imparted her skills to around 50 women. But so far, successors have not yet emerged. Sfandoya has remained the sole business player in shrimp and crab snack production in Bintuni Bay.

In Ida’s view, the impediment faced by the women’s groups is marketing. They are confused about where and to whom to sell their products. Relying on the Bintuni Bay public alone as their market target is obviously inadequate. Ida can understand, as Bintuni Bay is hard to access from other regions, so the cost of transportation, which affects the cost of snack delivery, is quite high.

Kompas/Harry Susilo

Processed product from shrimp made by Ida Padwa. This product is branded Sfandoya.

Still, Ida has never given up on carrying out her mission of spreading the spirit of Sfandoya to other Bintuni Bay women. Policymakers in Bintuni Bay must help other local entrepreneurs develop and find markets for their businesses.

Ida Padwa

Born: Manokwari, 7 Oct., 1980

Husband: Minister Fredrik Mofu, 47

Children:

- Neil Mofu, 20

- Meki Mofu, 17

- Heni Mofu, 10

- Greace Mofu, 4

Education: Oikumene Senior High School Manokwari (1998)

(This article was translated by Aris Prawira).