Istana Pandawa by IPB Students Achieved First Prize in A National-scale Business Competition

The demand of cake that increased by 1,384 percent at 2017 from 1,29 percent at 2014 drove three students from Agribusiness Department, Faculty of Economy and Management (FEM), Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) to come up with an idea of a snack made from yellow pumpkin. This idea was submitted to Management Business Plan Competition, which is a part of "Event Management" held by Management Students of Jakarta State University (UNJ) (16/10).

Yolanda Erna Yunita, Nur Afiani, and Anita Kusumawati chose yellow pumpkin as the main ingredient of this snack because in addition to diversify food source, yellow pumpkin has many nutritional content, such as syringic acid, cucurbitane-type triterpenes, hexanocucurbitane glycoside, such as cucurbitacin L, cucurbitacin A, betacarotene, pro vitamin A carotenoids, vitamin A, vitamin E, and vitamin C. This rich nutritional content of yellow pumpkin and its pleasant taste are not followed by its consumption in Indonesia. The consumption of yellow pumpkin in Indonesia is only 5 kilogram per capita per year, while its production is very high. An added value innovation is needed in yellow pumpkin commodity so that it can be accepted by consumers.

The new breakthrough of yellow pumpkin snack suggested by Yolanda, Afiani, and Anita is named Istana Pandawa, with its three products that were inspired by the names of wayang characters, which are Yudistira Cookies, Arjuna Pie, and Crispypump. Istana Pandawa's products include educational value about Pandawa wayang in each of its packaging.

"When the judge asked about whether it's the product or its value that we sell, we only answered that it was the value. The educational value about Indonesia's culture that is presented on each of Istana Pandawa products' packaging that tell a story about Lima Pandawa wayang," said Anita.

This business idea originated from last year's Students Creativity Program (PKM) that passed the selection and was funded, and still continued until now. Because they thought this idea had not been submitted to business plan competition, they tried to submit it in Management Business Plan Competition with several changes and additions.

The presentation session of Management Business Plan Competition was participated by eight teams from various universities, including STEI, SEBI, University of Indonesia, Gadjah Mada University, Airlangga University, Brawijaya University, Jakarta State University, Bandung Institute of Technology, Prasetya Mulya University, and IPB.

"At the beginning, we felt pessimistic because we got the last turn for the presentation and we had seen the previous groups' presentations which mostly consist of digital business and were very good. The last turn of ours gave us opportunity to analyze the possible questions from the judges to the previous groups. We started to predict the questions that might be asked to us, and yes, our predictions were mostly correct. From there we started to be optimistic because we could answer the questions. Alhamdulillah, during the announcement we found out that we got the first prize," explained Anita.

In the future, Anita wants that Istana Pandawa products can be continued with an even wider market, and can partner up with cake shops and souvenir centres, so that the products will not only be sold around campus, and eventually will be able to absorb more labors. (Ard)