This story is about the time I had the opportunity to join a SATUNAMA program that would teach me how to make salted fist in Cilacap. At first I just laughed at the idea of going all the way to Cilacap to learn how to make salted fish. But I went anyway and found that the methods used to make salted fish were very different to the methods used in my village.
When I got home I told my husband I could make salted fish and convinced him that we should try to make some,. It turns out that the finished product was of a much higher quality than locally produced salted fish. It was whiter, smoother and not too salty. The first batch sold out very quickly and because many of our neighbors also produced local saltted ffishh they asked us to raise our prices. This is because they couldn’t sell their lower quality salted firs if we had the same price.
Due to the success of our attempts to make slated firs, we look for firs at the mount of the river siagian everyday. When we have enough my husband returns by boat to the village, while I clean the fish and rince them directly in the ocean . When we get back to the village we turn the fresh fish into salted fish. During the salting process we follow the methods I learned in cilacap very closely, so the quality of the finished product remains high. Because the quality is higher than other local salted fish, we package ours directly into plastic bags with our logo on it so customer can be sure which salted fish is our.
Once we began production many local women said they wanted to learn the new methods too, so they asked us to train them. Now we have 22 women that make salted firs. We collect all the salted fish and sell it together. The only problem is that not all the product is of the same quality. Therefore, we separate the good quality product is put in plastic with our logo and sold for Rp.20.000/kg. The low quality product is put into a plainbagand sold for Rp.13.000/kg.
Suatu ketika saya mendapatkan kesempatan untuk ikut program SATUNAMA untuk belajar di Cilacap, Jawa Tengah. Sepulang dari study banding ke Cilacap, saya ada bilang ke bapak (suami) kalau saya diajarin beikin ikan asin. Semula saya ditertawakan karena buat apa jauh-jauh ke Jawa hanya untuk belajar bikin ikan asin. Tapi cara bikin ikan asin yang saya pelajari ini sangat berbeda dengan yang biasa dilakukan dikampung saya. Saya ajak bapak untuk coba bikin. Ternyata berhasil dan kualitas hasilnya jauh lebih baik , yaitu jauh lebih putih, tidak terlalu asin dan asinnya merata. Hasil coba-coba itu langsung laku terjual dalam waktu sekejap. Bahkan beberapa tetangga minta supaya harga harga ikan asin buatan kami dinaikan, karena akibat adanya ikan asin kami itu, ikan asin mereka tidak laku.
Karena coba-coba kami ternyata berhasil, sekarang setiap hari kami cari ikan di muara parit Siagan. Kalau sudah banyak, Bapak jalankan perahu kembali ke kampung, sementara saya bersihkan ikan dan langsung celupkan ke air laut. Sampai di Kampung, kami proses ikan menjadi ikan asin. Dalam memproses ikan asin, kami ikuti sungguh-sungguh cara yang kami pelajari di Cilacap agar kualitasnya tetap baik.
Karena kualitasnya lebih baik dari ikan asin yang diproduksi orang lain, kami lantas membungkusnya dengan plastik dan memberi nama dagang agar orang bisa mana punya kami dan mana yang bukan.
Setelah kami berhasil, banyak ibu-ibu ingin belajar juga. Kami diminta melatih mereka. Sekarang ada 22 ibu-ibu yang ikut bikin ikan asin. Hasilnya dikumpul untuk dijual bersama. Hanya saja, tidak semua ikan asin itu kualitasny baik. Karena itu kami pilih-pilih, yang kualitasnya baik kami masukan kantong dengan merk, sedang yang kurang baik kami masukan kantong saja. Kami jual ikan asin itu dengan harga beda. Untuk kualitas baik kami jual 20.000 rupiah/kg, sedangkan yang kualitasnya kuurang kami jual 13.000 rupiah/kg.
Cerita ini bagian dari Livelihood Sustainabillity di Teluk Bintuni, didanai oleh CSR BP Migas, berlangsung tahun 2004 – 2009.
