Pandemic a wake-up call for more healthy eating, Jakarta organic food pioneer observes

The founder of Organik Club, an organic produce shop and cafe in Jakarta, expected business to drop because of social distancing, but the reverse happened

‘More people turn to healthy eating now,’ Santi says, and after weeks spent packing boxes of produce nonstop for couriers to deliver, she’s expanding online

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Emilia Nursanti Wibisono, known locally as Santi, her children Kay and Verena, and husband Satrio Wibisono, in front of their business, Organik Klub in Jakarta, Indonesia. Photo: Ade Mardiyati

Published: 11:15am, 5 Jul 2020Updated: 10:23pm, 5 Jul 2020

Organik Klub, a Jakarta-based centre for organic food shopping, dining, and education, is open again for customers to walk in and chat with founder Emilia Nursanti Wibisono, a pioneer of the city’s organic food movement.

She had expected business would fall off with social distancing measures in place to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. “What happened was the other way around,” the 51-year-old says. The pandemic has been a wake-up call as “more and more people turn to healthy eating now”.

The business that she opened in 2003 to help ensure a supply of healthy produce for her family has become a household name in the Indonesian capital.

The organic produce on its shelves – from kale, garlic and tomatoes to bananas, passion fruit, pineapple, strawberries, coconut oil, coffee and more – is grown without using man-made pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers. Some research suggests they may have higher nutritional value than conventional food , as the lack of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers may boost their production of vitamins and antioxidants.

Santi in front of her shop and plant-based organic cafe Organik Klub in Jakarta. Photo: Ade Mardiyati

With her husband, Satrio Wibisono, and some loyal assistants, Santi, as she is popularly known, was kept busy packing vegetables, fruit, and other organic products to be picked up by couriers six days a week while social distancing measures were in place.