Two student teams of Food Technology Program at Unimus respectively won grand prize and third place of consolation prize in a food technology creativity competition entitled “Creating Local Material-based Composite Flour to Establish 2017 Creative Entrepreneurship” for senior high school and college students in Central Java. In a event held by the Food Technopark of Grobogan Regency in May 17, 2017, the participants were quite diverse and representative, consisting of Unimus, Undip, Unsoed, USM, Unika, Upgris, Theresiana Industrial Chemistry Vocational High School (SMK Kimia Industri Theresiana), and Widya Praja Ungaran Vocational High School.
“Unimus Food Technology Study Program, with its credo ‘Healthy Food Innovator and Entrepreneur’ always encourage the students to make healthy local food product innovations. We hope that the through the entrepreneurship, local food products can be promoted at national level, to make them local icons. Alhamdulillah, two student teams of ours can give contributions through their works at Central Java Province level, promoting the typical products of Grobogan Regency,” explained Dr. Nurhidajah S.T.P., M.Si., head of Unimus Food Technology Study Program.
Food Techno Park of Grobogan Regency was collaborating with the Center for Technology of Agroindustry, Deputy of Agro Industry and Biotechnology at Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT), Jakarta to held the competition. In his greeting speech, Director of the Center for Technology of Agroindustry, Dr. Hardaning Pranamuda M.Sc stated that “This competition aims at exploring the creativity and innovations of students and college students in the field of food technology by creating composite flour based on local materials”.
Siti Aminah, S.T.P., M.Si., a lecturer of Unimus Food Technology Program accompanying the students said that “Corn, cassava, soybean and arrowroot are the primary ingredients of the flour as required by the committee. They are featured products of Grobogan Regency. The innovation is hoped able to improve the quality of wheat with characteristics such as high sensory and having high economical value so that it can compete in the market.”
The competition was broken down into two stages, i.e. product proposal selection and final round. System of the final round was direct assessment on the creative products that their processing steps were demonstrated before the juries. Unimus Food Technology students created cake flour made from corn and arrowroot to be contested in the competition. The scoring criteria of a product included the proposal quality, focusing on the scientific (physio-chemical characteristic of the product and quality determination), creative and economic aspects as well as the applicative components of the product.
The first team of Unimus Food Technology Program consisted of Iis Istiqomah and Indah Tri Minarni, with Siti Aminah S.T.P. ,M.Si. as the adviser. They created CHOCOLANG (Rainbow Chocochips). Meanwhile, the second team consisted of Irma Fitriana Ardi K and Mita Aprilia Arrofi with Ir. Wikanastri Hersoelistyorini, M.T., as the adviser. They created GARKIES (Arrowroot Cookies). CHOCOLANG has the characteristics of soft cookies with a perfect combination of tastes, making the juries got impressed. That was why they gave the highest scores that made them the first place winner and thus got Rp. 5,000,000. Meanwhile, the so crispy GARKIES won third place of consolation prize and got Rp. 1,500,000
“We believe that this product has a great opportunity to be developed in order to become a typical local product. Nutrition evaluation and sensory characteristic that we have done show good results and prove that they have high sale value as people like it, “ stated Iis Istiqomah that won first place. In line with that, the committee also hoped that results of the competition can optimize the local resource potentials so that the people’s prosperity could be improved. It really makes us proud? (Iis, Aminah, Gus/admin)
