Economic Analysis of the Conventional Production of Traditional Brem Food

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the conventional production of traditional brem from the perspective of engineering and economic analysis. The engineering result showed that the process can be applied in industry in spite of using traditional method for processing the conversion of glutinous rice into brem via fermentation process. In short, the processes consisted of soaking, boiling, cooling, fermentation, pressing, stirring, stamping, cutting, drying, and packaging. To support the economic evaluation, several economic evaluation parameters were added, including gross profit margin, payback period, break even point, net present value, and cumulative net present value. To ensure the profitability of the project, initial mass of raw materials was tested from 20 to 100 kg of glutinous rice. The economic showed that the increases in the initial raw material give excellent tendency to the improvement of profit. However, the project must be followed by the innovation, since the economic evaluation revealed that the non-innovation project will result negative profit after 10 years of production. Interestingly, since the project involves small-scale production that use less labor, the present brem production can be classified as an attractive small industry.