On 10-12 April 2019, the Department of Food Technology and Agricultural Products of FTP UGM held a community service program in the form of training on grass jelly and pumpkin processing for nine participants from the Magetan Regency Food Plantation Horticulture and Food Security Office. The training program was coordinated by Fiametta Ayu Purwandari, STP, M.Sc. The purpose of the training was to provide insight to the participants regarding the food safety of innovative and contemporary products from local sources of the Magetan district, namely pumpkin and grass jelly.
Pumpkin and grass jelly are two food commodities from Magetan Regency that have great potential to be developed into various new food products. Yellow pumpkin, which is referred to by the local community as pumpkin, is known to have good nutritional value, especially in antioxidants, vitamin A, and vitamin E contained in it. Until now, the processed pumpkin that is often found in the market is still processed with little added value and even sold in the form of whole pumpkins as is known in the pumpkin center in Karas District, Magetan Regency. Cincau plants are easily found in Magetan Regency and have high productivity. However, the diversity of grass jelly-based products has not been widely developed.
The training began on Wednesday, April 10, 2019, and took place in the Conference Room of the TPHP Department. The training starts from 09.00 WIB to 12.00 WIB. The speaker Dr. Dian Anggraini Suroto, S.T.P, M.P. delivered about food safety and regulation. The first topic discussed was considering that food safety and the regulations governing it are the main factors that determine the success of businesses in the food sector. After the first session, the training was continued by Dr. Widiastuti Setyaningsih, S.T.P, M.Sc with training material on food packaging label regulations. In this session, several packaging designs were proposed by Andika Wicaksono, S.T.P., M.Sc. as an expert in packaging design.
On the second and third days, the training took place at the Gastro Lab of the Department of Food Technology and Agricultural Products. The training activities were divided into two training sessions from 09:00 to 16:00 WIB. The two training sessions focused on the practice of making processed products from pumpkin and grass jelly.
In the first session on April 11, 2019 participants made processed pumpkin and grass jelly. The products made included pumpkin ice cream, grass jelly spice tea, and grass jelly cappuccino. In the second session, participants were trained to make pumpkin cake/bread, grass jelly rootbeer, and grass jelly chocolate. Then the third day of training in the first session participants was trained to make pumpkin pudding, grass jelly pull tea, and grass jelly bajigur. Furthermore, in the second session, the products made were pumpkin klepon, degan cincau, and green tea cincau. The product development carried out not only focuses on the type of product but also utilizes local ingredients and spices.
The three-day training was enthusiastically attended by participants from the Food Crops Horticulture Plantation and Food Security Office of Magetan Regency. Various products and their attractive packaging were trained for the participants. The training material provided as community service by the Department of Food Technology and Agricultural Products is expected to provide benefits for the citizens of Magetan Regency in the future. (aaf/ws)
