Hello readers, Welcome
to my blog! :)
My name is Selvia and here, I would like to share my experience after visiting Yakult factory in Sukabumi.
Please enjoy reading my blog! Thank you J
Let's watch this following video first, shall we? :D
1. Brief Introduction
L.casei
Shirota Strain was first found by a microbiology expertise in Japan; Dr Minoru
Shirota. He then developed this bacteria and invented Yakult drink as a healthy drink for humans’ digestion
progress.
Dr. Minoru Shirota
Left: Dr. Minoru Shirota
Right: L.casei Shirota Strain
Yakult
PT Yakult Indonesia Persada was established on February 2nd 1990 and started its production on January 1991. This is the second fabric in Indonesia and it was once located in Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta before it was being moved to Sukabumi in 1997. The reason why it moved was because the area there was too small, so it was hard to expand the factory there. The purpose of creating Yakult was for the society to be aware of health and to know that Yakult has another benefit than just as a refreshing drink which is to smooth our digestion progress since it uses L.casei Shirota strain as the type of bacteria in creating Yakult.
PT. Yakult Indonesia Persada
2. My Expectation and The Truth
On
Thursday, August 7th 2014, my university, INTI College Indonesia,
was having a study trip to PT Yakult Indonesia Persada that is located in
Sukabumi. It took us almost 4 hours (including the rest area stop) to get
there. It was a bit tiring but also such a pleasure to go there because the
place was beyond my expectation. Talking about Yakult means we are discussing
about fermented milk. Speaking of milk means we are talking about cattle.
That’s what came to my imagination when my university was announcing that we
were going to visit PT Yakult Indonesia Persada. I was expecting that the
factory will only consist of its own cattle with some cows taken care there in
order for them to produce milk as the main ingredient as well as some machines
that are used to process the milk to become fermented and make it ready to be sold
to customers as Yakult. I thought that the place would have just standard size
and environment as what many factories commonly look like. However, it turned
out that PT Yakult Indonesia Persada was a quite huge factory with a friendly
environment. The white color of the factory makes it looks clean and the
flowing water that kind of looks like a pool makes it looks sterile and fresh
as the water was clear as crystal. Surprisingly, that clear water was the waste
from producing Yakult. That was quite a shocking fact to be known there.
Expectation
Reality (The Truth)
3. Dear Diary
Now,
I would like to share my experience after visiting Yakult factory special to my
dearest readers. Hopefully what I write here can give you at least an overall
imagination of what PT Yakult Indonesia Persada looks like and add up some
knowledge that you can get by visiting the factory. It is going to be even
better if what I share makes you want to visit Yakult factory by yourself and I
really recommend you to visit there. There is going to be a lot of fun! J
4. First Knowledge
Just
as soon as I get to PT Yakult Indonesia Persada, Sukabumi, I can see a refreshing
environment there. As I have told you before that there is a little pool that
contains of flowing water, added up with the weather in Sukabumi that was
really fresh and cool that day, the mood was just right. Then my friends and I
got into the lobby of the factory. First knowledge that I got as soon as I came
in was that it turned out Yakult that is sold in Indonesia was not the only product
that Yakult factory produced, mostly in Japan. I knew it when I saw a glass
storefront filled up with Yakult’s products dummies at the corner of the lobby.
You can see those variants in the picture below.
The Pool
Yakult's Variants
5. The Fun Has Just Started
Then,
all of INTI students and lectures were all being gathered in some kind of a
quite large meeting room where the hosts from Yakult factory will do their
presentation and other activities there. As we were queuing to enter the room, a
flyer was given to each of us. This flyer consists of the overall information
about PT Yakult Indonesia Persada as well as the product that it sells. Right
in front of the entrance door, we were served with a bottle of Yakult (the one
that is sold in Indonesia), then we took a seat provided there one by one while
enjoying the freshness of the Yakult. Then, the activity started. The host from
Yakult factory began to do the opening statements. Firstly he welcomed us and started
the activities by explaining the tagline of Yakult which is “Cintai Ususmu,
Yakult Setiap Hari”. He also explained why PT Yakult Indonesia Persada uses that
sentence as its tagline. He said that intestine is a part of organs in our body
that has a function to absorb the nutrition from the food that we eat. If there
is any problem with our intestine, let’s say there is any damage on our
intestine, then it might not be able to absorb any nutrition from the food that
we eat again and that will affect our digestion progress as well as our immunity
system in preventing any diseases to occur in our body. That’s why as Yakult is
a healthy drink, especially for our digestion progress; therefore Yakult uses
this statement as its tagline. Afterwards, the host started to begin the
presentation with the slides provided there. This presentation lasted for about
30 minutes. In the presentation, firstly, the host explained the background of
PT Yakult Indonesia Persada, when it was established, why the factory was moved
from East Jakarta to Sukabumi, and what the purpose of creating Yakult was.
Then, he continued explaining about who was the inventor of Yakult, how he took
a deep research on L.casei Shirota strain bacteria. Next, the host also
discussed about the safeness of consuming Yakult that it does not contain any preservative
chemical (it will expire after 40 days it is produced) and coloring chemical
(the color of Yakult is white just like normal milk), that’s why there is no
side effect for long term consumption of Yakult. The way to keep Yakult was
also being explained at that time that it should be kept in the freezer,
because the bacteria will begin to work their benefits to produce lactic acid
when they are connected with warm or hot degree which has to be the degree in
our body, otherwise if you put the Yakult in a normal degree, then the bacteria
might have been worked out in the bottle. Afterwards, he also explained about the
distribution of Yakult in Indonesia, how it tries to connect with customers in
East of Indonesia that it has to wait for its factory in Mojokerto to run so
that it can cover those customers in East of Indonesia.
Flyer Front Page
Flyer Back Page
Welcoming Slide
6. Let’s Watch A Film, Shall We?
After
hearing the presentation conducted by the host from PT Yakult Indonesia
Persada, then we were served by a short film about many things about Yakult,
from the first time it was invented, who was the inventor, how the bacteria
works on human body, the newest invention that shows L.casei bacteria can be
used to kill cancer cells with the estimation of 65% success, the production
process as well as the distribution process (who the Yakult Ladies are). There
were so many information that my friends and I could get from this short film.
What an interesting film it was.
Part of the short film: Yakult Indonesia TV Commercial 2014
Additional Advertisement: Yakult Malaysia TV Commercial "Hanya Kamu" 2014
7. The Ingredients of Yakult
Next,
the explanation was continued by another host from the factory. This time, the
host was telling us about the ingredients for making Yakult which are said to
be natural. The ingredients are skim milk, glucose, mineral water, sucrose, and
of course 6.5 billion of L.casei bacteria for each bottle of Yakult. Then, the
materials to make the packaging of Yakult are plastic seeds and aluminum foils.
From this clarification, now I know why there are no cattle in the fabric just
like what I expected it to be. The reason is that the milk that is used to
produce Yakult is a skim milk that is imported from Australia.
Skim Milk
8. Live Yakult’s Manufacturing Process
Following
the activities that have been done in the meeting room, we were then given a
chance and being directed to see the manufacturing processes of producing
Yakult; how it was made from the very beginning until how it was packaged and
distributed to customers. This is very fun since we got to see the
manufacturing process lively not just from videos or any other media. Then,
after seeing the whole processes, we got back to the meeting room and being
served by some snacks and two bottles of Yakult. Yummy J
Yummy :)
9. Question and Answer Session
As
the last session of that day’s activities, we got the chances to ask questions
to the host about Yakult. Then the host wrote down all the questions and answered
them one by one. I got much information from this session. Let me share some of
them.
9.1
Improvisation
of Yakult’s Manufacturing Process (My Opinion)
The manufacturing process of producing Yakult
includes 6 stages which are nursery stage, fermentation stage, mixing stage,
bottle producing stage, packaging stage, and distribution stage. All of these
stages used in producing Yakult are good enough since every stages needed to
make sure of the quality of the Yakult produced are there. However, the part in
Yakult’s manufacturing process that I think needs to be improved is on the
packaging stage. As what have been explained by the host, there will be an
employee that is responsible to watch the ending products of Yakult before they
are being packaged either into small packages that consist of 5 bottles for
each or into big packages which consist of 10 bottles for each. That employee
will have to sort all of the Yakult that have been produced and find out if
there is any Yakult that is not qualified to the standard. For example, should
one bottle of Yakult consist of 65 ml but there are some bottles of Yakult that
consists less than 65 ml. These bottles have to be taken out by the employee
and instead of combining those bottles to fulfill each other to become 65 ml
per bottle; these bottles will have to be thrown out or destroyed. Now, this is
the part that I think should be improved in Yakult’s manufacturing process. As
what I have seen lively in the manufacturing process, there are a lot of broken
Yakult that are going to be wasted. In my opinion, these Yakult will be acted
as losses to PT Yakult Indonesia Persada since those Yakult should have brought
profits to it from the sales of them instead of losses and these losses can incur
not because of the demand of Yakult is declining but it is because of the
mindset of PT Yakult Indonesia Persada itself that “if it is not qualified to
the standard then throw it away!”. The good thing about this mindset is that it
means Yakult(s) that are sold by PT Yakult Indonesia Persada have qualified the
standard and this will lead to customer satisfaction after buying Yakult.
However, looking back at economics side, especially in marketing, accounting
and finance department, a company should minimize its losses as small as
possible and in reverse it should maximize its profits as much as possible.
Therefore, maybe instead of throwing away those unqualified products, it is
better for them to be reprocessed to become qualified products. This way, it
will minimize any possible losses incur to the company.
9.2
About
PT Yakult Indonesia Persada’s Marketing Department
There are approximately 3000-4000 employees who work
in the marketing department; 400 people are employed in Sukabumi; and 300
people are employed in Mojokerto. These amounts are excluding the Yakult
Ladies. Yakult Ladies are not included as the employees of PT Yakult Indonesia
Persada since they are freelance agents that are facilitated with some
materials to work with by PT Yakult Indonesia Persada. However, even though
they are not its employees, they are still being controlled by the company. In
this case, those Yakult Ladies are gathered in one center, for example the
center is in Tomang, then the Yakult Ladies will be divided per group to be
able to do their work in a specific area around Tomang so that there will be no
clashes between them that suddenly that one Yakult Lady wants to enter the
working area of the other Yakult Lady. That’s why they need to be controlled by
PT Yakult Indonesia Persada. Up until now the total number of Yakult Ladies is
5000 people.
The
structure of Yakult’s Marketing Department is divided into two sub-departments,
which are:
1. Sales
Department
2. Non-Sales Department
The
sales department consists of Yakult department and Sales department, whereas
the non-sales department consists of Marketing Communication and Commercial
department and Marketing Education department. As for the example of sales
department function is the advertisement that is done to promote Yakult to
customers; whereas the example of non-sales department is the one we were doing
at that time, by welcoming any visitors from schools, colleges, and any other
groups to Yakult fabric to give them more knowledge about Yakult from the
history, benefits, how it works in human body, until the way to consume and
keep it.
9.3
Yakult’s
Promotional Mix
The promotional mix that PT Yakult Indonesia Persada
is using is the advertising, sales promotion, public relation, direct
marketing, and internet marketing.
9.3.1 Advertising
There
are two kinds of advertising that is done by PT Yakult Indonesia Persada which
are off the line and below the line. It does off the line advertisement in the
form of digital advertisement with the quantity more than below the line such
as the advertisement on television, radio and some magazines. Its division has
always done a new advertisement on television per period and recently it has done
the advertisement for May-June period. The advertisement it has done for July-August
period might not be very booming since it was a Ramadhan month where most
people were fasting. Other food and drinks products might do many advertisements
during this period but for Yakult company, it says that it does not feel right (it
feels uncomfortable) to ask people to drink during fasting period. Below the
line advertisement is done by giving more education to society about Yakult.
That’s why we have what we call with “Film SOI” to explain about the benefits
of Probiotic in Yakult from children to adults.
Picture 1. Part of Yakult Indonesia TV Commercial Advertisement
Picture 2: Part of Yakult Indonesia TV Commercial Advertisement
Picture 3. Part of Yakult Indonesia TV Commercial Advertisement
Advertisement: Yakult Indonesia TV Commercial 2014
Yakult in UK
9.3.2 Sales Promotion
Sales
Promotion that is done by PT Yakult Indonesia Persada may not occur for so many
times but there was a time when it gave promotion “Buy 5 Get 1 Free” which can easily
be found in some well-known supermarkets. That is an example of sales promotion
effort.
9.3.3 Public Relation
Public relation here
is done by the Yakult Ladies. Yakult Ladies are distributing Yakult to people
who live around them, either to the end customers or maybe to small traditional stores. While they are selling the product, they also give the
customers health information. Therefore, the action of Yakult Ladies can also
be called as an act of public relation or in Indonesia we can call it as “Pusat
Informasi Berjalan”.
Yakult Lady
Yakult Lady: "Good Morning, Do you want to buy Yakult, Ma'am?"
9.3.4 Direct Marketing
Instead
of just distributing its products to some supermarkets (in other word retailers) and groceries, such as traditional and modern stores, direct marketing is also done by PT Yakult Indonesia Persada
by joining events, such as Jakarta Fair, Bazaars in Senayan, Monas, etc. By
joining these events, Yakult company can open a booth there and directly sell
its products to the end customers.
Yakult on Jakarta Fair
9.3.5 Internet Marketing
Yakult's Website
9.4 Yakult
in Social Media
Furthermore about internet
marketing, recently social media is very booming, from Facebook, Twitter, Path,
and many others. These social media are not only popular among people at
certain age but they are also popular among people at any age from kids,
teenagers, young adults, adults, and even elderly. However, PT Yakult Indonesia
Persada is not keen in using social media to promote the product. To explain
the reason, let’s take the example of a very common social media which is
Facebook. In Facebook, people are free to show up their opinion regardless of
the impacts that could appear from those opinions. Imagine if PT Yakult
Indonesia Persada is using Facebook to promote Yakult but then someone who
personally does not like Yakult leaves a comment there saying that he got
poisoned after drinking Yakult and when Yakult company tries to ask when did it
happen, that person did not reply. What will other people think after seeing
his comment? There is a possibility that people will get influence by that
comment in which the truth has not yet been known. It is possible that the
person is just doing HOAX, but then just because of this irresponsible act, PT
Yakult Indonesia Persada has to be responsible for the impact. This is why, PT
Yakult Indonesia Persada is not keen in using social media to promote its
product. It wants to prevent this kind of acts to happen. Besides, it can bring
a bad image towards Yakult in the eye of customers. Customers become afraid to
consume Yakult especially as it contains of bacteria. People might think that
that person is poisoned because of the bacteria whereas actually those bacteria
are good for human body. Therefore, instead of using social media, PT Yakult
Indonesia Persada is using Customer Call Free Service 0 800 1 925858 that is
available from Monday to Friday at 9am to 5pm because it is easier to keep in
touch by using this service. In my opinion, the decision of PT Yakult Indonesia
Persada not to use any kind of social medias in promoting its product is
relevant enough as we know that nowadays social medias are often being misused
by many people, especially when it deals with mocking (make fun of) something
or even someone. Well, that's a really bad thing, isn't it? Therefore, from now
on, please use social media wisely, okay readers?
9.5 Afraid
of Living Bacteria? Don’t be!
Not everyone is comfortable with
drinking living bacteria whereas Yakult contains of living bacteria, how to
handle this problem? The only way to handle this problem is by giving education
about the benefits that people can get by consuming Yakult from children to
adults. This can be done to schools (playgroups, elementary schools, junior
high schools, senior high schools), social organization, recitation area,
posyandu, PKK, etc. So far, there is no problem for PT Yakult Indonesia Persada
in educating people about this problem. However this relates to the reason why
there is only one type of Yakult in Indonesia whereas in Singapore there are 3
different variants. So Yakult contains of Probiotic which is bacteria.
Indonesian people view bacteria as things that are dirty or in Indonesia we
call it “kuman”. Thus, it is hard to introduce this Probiotic terms to
Indonesian people since they have already got negative way of thinking about
Probiotic whereas actually there are two types of bacteria; good bacteria and
bad bacteria and Probiotic is good bacteria. Therefore, there is only one type
of Yakult that is sold in Indonesia. Imagine if PT Yakult Indonesia Persada adds
more variants to Yakult that is sold in Indonesia. Then, at least there will be
4 other chemicals including color and essence chemicals that should be added to
Yakult and this will make Indonesian people become more afraid to consume
Yakult whereas actually the purpose of Yakult is to make people healthier than
ever.
10. Last but not Least
As
the finishing, the representative of INTI College Indonesia then gave PT Yakult
Indonesia Persada a gift as an appreciation for letting us visit the factory. Then
PT Yakult Indonesia Persada also gave us a souvenir in returns. Not to forget,
we also took pictures together in the lobby where we came in before as memento
or memorials.
Souvenir from PT Yakult Indonesia Persada - Front Cover
Souvenir from PT Yakult Indonesia Persada - Back Cover
11. Conclusion
As
the conclusion, to me, Yakult drink is a very tasty drink with a mix of sweet
and sour sensation that makes me feel fresh after drinking it. I don’t really
bother with those opinions overthinking about drinking living bacteria or
Probiotic. The reasons are that first, it was found by a microbiology expertise
from Japan. I personally trust the hygiene of Japanese products since Japan is
known at its high technologies and this is also according to my personal
experience of going to Japan that the country is very clean and well-ordered,
and what I respect the most is their belief, that once they have done a fatal
mistake, they will do suicide (hara-kiri). Due to these considerations, I am
not afraid of consuming Japanese products because if there is anything wrong in
Yakult, Japanese people might have complained to the central factory there in Japan
and the owner will take full responsibility of the failure that he has made.
But in fact, none of that problem has ever happened, right? J Moreover, as it
is said that people can get benefits by consuming Yakult especially in our
digestion progress, then it is really good since in our digestion progress, we
are throwing away all poisons that are exist inside our body which might occur
from the food that we eat. Imagine if we are not digesting for days, how many
poisons are stuck in our body. That is not good. So if healthy and tasty can be
combined into one drink, then why bother with anything else?
Happy Drinking J
Happy Tummy J
Happy Life J
