Enterprise Builder · Bali, Indonesia
Bintang Handayani, Kintara
Turning coffee farm waste into food, income, and futures in Kintamani.
Founded
2024
Stage, Type
Prototyping, Food Processor
Key Raw Material
Coffee Cherry Skin
Location
Kintamani, Bali
By The Number
21
years old
College student. Farmer's daughter.
100
kg cascara
Harvested yearly from her father's farm.
10
tons coffee cherry
Skin recovered, not discarded.
40
farming households
Ready to supply.
40
female workers
Ready to process cascara.
1,900
kg cascara
Available from 40 farming families in the village.
Zero
coffee waste
That is the goal.
The Origin
The waste bothered her. Her father had the answer.
Bintang grew up inside coffee. Her father leads the local farmer group and the subak in Kintamani. Her mother leads the women farmers’ group. Agriculture was not a subject she studied. It was the air.
When she noticed that coffee cherry skin was being discarded every harvest season, sometimes damaging the soil, the question was not abstract: what if this became something?
She found her answer at the intersection of old knowledge and new research. Her father remembered people used to eat coffee cherry skin as a snack when he was young. A connection with the Department of Agriculture at Udayana University confirmed that cascara, dried coffee cherry skin, could be processed and consumed. Bintang began experimenting, aiming to create extra income for her family and neighbours while addressing a waste problem that everyone else had accepted.
The Business
A food business built on what Kintamani's harvest leaves behind.
Kintara now has four products: cascara tea, cassava chips with Balinese sunaceku spice (chilli, garlic, kencur), and brownies. The chips came from a competition challenge. A mentor told her to use Balinese spices. She tried and failed with a different format, switched to cassava chips, and developed the recipe through her own trial and error. None of this came from a food science programme. All of it came from a kitchen, a problem, and a decision to keep going.
The farmers in Kintamani grow coffee and citrus on seasonal cycles. Between harvests, many borrow money and repay after. Bintang wants to build something that breaks that cycle, using her father’s farmer group and her mother’s women farmers’ group as the foundation of her supply chain and workforce. The vision extends further: a factory, her own outlets, and a tourism farm where visitors trace the full journey from coffee cherry to finished product. A Support Partner who joins Kintara now helps build the foundation before the weight arrives.
Key Problem
Product and market testing
Three products exist. Whether they are right for the right customers, in the right format, at the right price, has yet to be properly tested. Clear answers here shape pricing, positioning, and scale.
Production methods and process experimentation
The current production method is hand-cut and fried. Texture, ingredient substitutions, and scaling techniques all need exploration. Better methods unlock consistency, efficiency, and readiness for volume.
Production capacity planning
What can realistically be produced in a day, a week, a year is not yet mapped. Knowing this turns growth from guesswork into a plan, and unlocks confident commitments to buyers.
Channel and market mapping
Where and how Kintara reaches customers is still narrow. Mapping supermarkets, direct sales, online, and other channels opens multiple paths to revenue and reduces dependency on any single one.
Business plan and roadmap
The vision is clear: factory, outlets, agritourism. The path is not. A 12-month roadmap with revenue targets and investment priorities turns ambition into actionable steps.
Supplier and procurement
Packaging and material suppliers have been unreliable. A vetted supplier list, basic procurement process, and quality checks would prevent the recurring losses already absorbed.
Stories & Principles
A TVRI crew came for her father. He handed it to Bintang instead.
Her father was supposed to speak to TVRI about coffee pricing in Kintamani. During the interview, he introduced Bintang and had her speak about her cascara work. The interview was published. It went viral.
The comments were skeptical. People didn’t believe coffee cherry skin could be safely consumed and questioned her age and credibility. Her father responded in the comments one by one, explaining cascara’s history and defending the product. Bintang had not prepared for any of it. It was the moment the business became public before she had decided it was ready.
Bintang’s first business was selling cempaka flowers for Hindu ceremonies, in elementary school.
In Bali, cempaka flowers are used in Hindu prayer rituals. Bintang’s family garden had cempaka trees. She began harvesting them in the afternoon and selling bundles of four flowers for IDR 1,000 the next morning. On good days she earned IDR 30,000. She stopped asking her parents for pocket money. She described it herself as just playing around. It worked, and she kept doing it. It was the first time she noticed a gap, found a resource, and built something from the overlap.
When asked whether she still wanted to continue despite how much harder the business had become to understand, Bintang said: “Yes, because before I was just playing around, but now I’m learning more. The more we learn, the more we don’t know. But it’s like getting new knowledge.“
She had started thinking business was simple. Now she sees the supply chain, the production constraints, the packaging problems, the financial gaps. She described this not as discouragement, but as orientation.
Bintang looking for a Support Partner ready to walk alongside her.
