Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Ministry of Industry continues to accelerate the downstreaming of palm oil businesses, especially for products containing beta-carotene (pro vitamin A) and tocopherol (vitamin E), to meet people’s nutritional needs.
According to the ministry’s director general of agro industry, Putu Juli Ardika, not many people realize that palm oil contains important nutrients such as beta-carotene, tocopherol, medium chain triglyceride (MCT), squalane and antioxidants, which are good to maintain body health.
He explained that the modern palm oil production process through chemical oil refining actually eliminates the natural important nutritional content of palm oil. So, vitamin needs can be met from synthetic health supplements or from other sources.
"Vitamin supplementation from plant sources, including from naturally processed palm oil, is a smart option to maintain adequate nutrition for the people, especially for vulnerable groups such as school children and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers," Ardika said in his statement on Sunday.
Therefore, the Ministry of Industry is supporting the facilitation of a collaborative research between the Indonesian Palm Oil Society (MAKSI) and state-owned pharmaceutical company PT Kimia Farma, by preparing the draft of Indonesian National Standard (RSNI) for palm oil-based supplement products.
The SNI for health supplement products is considered very important to open up opportunities for all stakeholders, including SOEs, private companies and other related parties to be involved in the national program to provide adequate nutrition for the people -- including the free meals program.
Among the supports from the ministry is holding a scientific technical meeting to finalize the concept of developing supplement products with national nutrition experts, he added.
The Ministry of Industry will also bridge the legal aspects of cooperation including intellectual property management and determine the requirements, so the results of this collaborative research can be implemented into a national scale program, especially to support the free meals program.
“We hope the pioneer model of collaborative research between MAKSI and PT Kimia Farma in palm oil-based health supplement products can be a new milestone in the development of the agro-industry sector, which has the potential to be explored for the commercial industrial scale," Ardika concluded.
