Professor Chair Holder of IPB: Indonesia No Need to Import Peptone, We Can Produce Quality Peptones
Pepton is any water-soluble mixture of polypeptides and amino acids formed by the partial hydrolysis of protein. Peptones and extracts are excellent natural sources of amino acids, peptides and proteins in growth media. They are most often obtained by enzymatic digestion or acid hydrolysis of natural products, such as animal tissues, milk, plants or microbial cultures. The process of making peptone is generally through hydrolysis using enzymes. Fish peptone was produced using enzymatic hydrolysis of fish filleting by-products by alcalase and trypsin.
"Pepton is widely used as one of the nutrients for the growth of microorganisms both bacteria and yeasts. This compound is widely used by biotechnology-based industries, food and non-food industries in the manufacture of products using microbes, the pharmaceutical industry (vaccine industry and antibiotics), research institutes and universities," said Prof. Dr. Tati Nurhayati, SPi, M.Si when she presented her Pers Conference prior her scientific oration at IPB Campus, Baranang Siang, Bogor, on 22 March 2018.
According to her in Indonesia the needs of peptone are currently fulfilled through commercially import. The price of imported pepton can reach 5 million rupiah per kilogram. Based on information from world trade statistics, the value of peptone and its derivatives imports to Indonesia in 2016 amounted to approximately 20,112 million US dollars.
"This is very ironic. Indonesia embraces 93,000 square kilometers of inlands seas (straits, bays, and other bodies of water) and 54,716 kilometers of coastline. The sea areas surrounding Indonesia bring its generally recognized territory (land and sea) to about 5 million square kilometers (about half the size of the U.S.). Indonesia, where two-thirds of its territory are ocean has high fishery resources potential. The potential of world’s marine resources we have can provide great benefits for human life both in terms of food and economy. that can be utilized for the manufacture of fish peptone. Hasil Tangkap Sampingan (Side-catches fish – bycatch), better known as trash fish is the waste that has relatively high content of calcium, protein, vitamins, iron and minerals, so it has potential to e used as raw material to manufacture peptone for bacterial growth media for bacteria Lactobacillus johnsonii," she said.
Fishermen often suffer losses. There are three main groups of supply chains that cause losses to fishermen. That is the losses incurred during fishing and aboard (5 percent), losses incurred during processing and packaging (28 percent), and small percentage of losses incurred between the distribution.
The high protein content of the fish can be used as raw material to make by-product with a higher sale value, as a medium for bacterial growth to produce peptone. Trash fish is the waste that can be used as a potential resource. Trash fish as a source of calcium can be used as the nutrient needed to grow microorganisms in the media. The rotten fish has the advantage, as their meats are soft (already decomposed by endogenous proteolotic enzymes that exist in dead fish). This means that in the manufacture of peptone, the required protease enzyme is less.
Making of peptone by utilizing the trash fish is a new technology that IPB offer. From the parameters used to measure the quality of peptone, peptone fish has a quality and characteristics similar to that of imported peptone. Fish peptone is a product with important economic value to the fishing industry, because it has a very high market prices when compared with other byproducts such as fish silage and fish meal.
"It means Indonesia is capable to produce world-class commercial standards peptone. So we don’t need to import peptone because we can produce our own," she said.
According to her, to produce 1 kilogram of peptone, we need 280 kilograms of fish. As we utilized side-catches fish (HTS) or fish waste, its price is only Rp. 2000 /Kg.
"The capital to purchase the raw material of peptone was Rp 600 thousand, plus small quantity of protease enzyme are needed. While the selling price of peptone is Rp. 5.000.000,- / Kg, of course it can produce very big profit,” she said.
In addition to have similar characteristics with commercial peptones, they do not require enzyme protease in large quantities, this fish peptone technology also has a greater rendemen compared producing peptones using fresh fish as its raw material. Moreover, this technology adds value to the waste of fishery products.
"This technology was granted an awarded by the Business Innovation Center (BIC), and it appeared in the 107 Most Prospective Indonesian Innovations by 2015. The research title is Pepton Berbahan Baku Ikan Hasil Tangkap Sampingan Tidak Layak Konsumsi (Pepton HTS) (the Utilization of Trash Fish Solid Waste as Peptone (Pepton HTS)," she said.
Though the raw materials are abundant and the manufacturing process is not complicated, however, no industry has implemented this technology in Indonesia. (Wied)
