Ibu Tutu's Cooking Success Story: Don't Hesitate to Start New

One of the problems that we often encounter when we want to start a business is being afraid to come up with new ideas. In fact, it is precisely this behavior that is the key to your failure. Bringing up new things feels strange. It's natural to be afraid that our ideas will not be accepted by society. However, this is actually aturning point' you to make your business different from others.

Likewise with Mrs. Nina. This woman whose full name is Gusti Noor Nisrina Khairia dares to come up with ideas that are considered very new in the culinary business world. Yes, the Roti Cocol product that he started in July 2019 was a huge success in the market. This is because this woman from Surabaya dared to take new steps for her business.

Bread Cocol, or commonly known as Rotcol is baked bread baked in tray round and served with dipping sauce in the middle. There are many variations, ranging from smoked beef, cheese, tuna, palm sugar, and many more. However, their mainstay top menu is the Rotcol variant sweet butter which is very popular with consumers.

Mother and Child Effort

Mother and daughter-owned business

Interestingly, the business labeled Ibu Tutu's Cuisine was founded by a mother and daughter who both have cooking skills. The founder is Mrs. Nina herself. Meanwhile, Ms. Zulfia Arifni, who is more familiarly called Ms. Tutu, acts as co founder. Actually, Mrs. Tutu has started a culinary business like this from 1993, starting from making cookies, cakes, dumplings and others. However, the marketing is only limited to the realm of the closest friends. It was only when Mrs. Nina graduated from college in 2017, that she thought about asking her mother to do business together.

“At that time, a few months after graduating from college, I joined the bazaar. 10 days in a row we sell batagor dumplings. It was the first time that we served customers directly, and after that we felt challenged. It's also fun to sell like this. And finally we decided to get serious about the business together. Finally, we started 2017 by selling chicken noodles, chicken noodles. Then there are also products like schooltel, rice box, snack box, etc."

First in Indonesia

The first Cocol bread in Indonesia

This is what makes this product attractive to many people. Apart from being affordable so that all people can enjoy this product, this product also carries a fresh concept that makes consumers interested in tasting it. Yes, this idea is purely from the founder. Apparently, there is an interesting story behind the appearance of this cocol bread.

“The story is quite unique. So before that Ibu Tutu had often made bread, but only for our daily consumption. One day, when I went to the bakery, I saw that there was tray round aluminum. But at that time I had no thoughts of buying it, because I didn't know what to do. Well, a few days after that, when we were both chatting, suddenly the idea came up to make dip bread. I told Mama. 'Mah, let's make delicious bread'. 'Is the bread dipped?' 'Yes, bread, later we will make it in the bullet tray, there is a dip in the middle. Well, just try that,'”, said Mrs. Nina.

From the very beginning, Mrs. Nina was very optimistic that this product would be liked and loved by many people, because there had never been a similar product before. The product is also different from the others. The initial variant that was used as an experiment was sausage bread with cheese sauce dipping.

This is because Mrs. Nina prefers the savory flavored bread. Then, Bu Tutu developed a sweet-flavored bread, which is now their signature product, namely Sweet Butter.

Success Thanks to Consistency of Ingredients

Until now, this mother-daughter duo has no plans to hiring other employees. With abilities in different kitchens, they can work and complement each other to create products with great taste. Before deciding to start this business, they are used to making their own orders with different products and target markets.

However, even though they only started their business together and relied on home tools only, the quality of their products should be equated with the level of medium to high class. That's because they always maintain the quality of product materials. although they often hold promotions, they still prioritize honesty.

The product photos displayed on social media are the same products they sell without reducing the raw materials in the production process at all. That way, customers don't feel cheated by photos alone.

Like other businesses, Ibu Tutu's cooking business has also experienced problems, namely when the price of raw materials increased.

“There are several raw material products whose price increases are not accompanied by quality maintenance. Because the price keeps going up. Sometimes it's a bit confusing too. This increase in raw material prices cannot be accompanied by an increase in selling prices. Because in a pandemic like this, we also keep customers loyal to our products." said Mrs. Nina.

“However, we are still grateful for what we have lived. Even though it's actually not big enough, thank God this business can survive in the midst of a pandemic like this. Our business is still producing almost every day and even getting new customers every day,” added Mrs. Tutu.

Don't hesitate to start something new

Currently, the promotion of Ibu Tutu's Cuisine products is carried out via social media, such as via Instagram and WhatsApp. During the initial launch, they used promotional services from foodies on Instagram. But the rest of the promotions are carried out according to the flow, I don't know story by story, post by post, or mouth to mouth. Their slick and tempting Instagram posts always make netizens interested in trying their products. Now, followers Their Instagram account has almost crossed the 3000 mark.

So successful, once in 2020, this mother and daughter received 100 orders of Cocol Bread tray at a time. With limited improvised equipment, armed with strong determination, they managed to complete this order. Their tiring 29 hours of non-stop work paid off. This job trains them to always be patient, diligent, and have good time management.

“The key is to prioritize honesty when starting a business. Especially in terms of promotional photos. Often we find products that use good photos, but turn out to be made by other people. The products we received did not meet expectations, so customers were disappointed and reluctant to repeat orders again, "said Mrs. Tutu.

“For those of you who want to start a business, the key is to be persistent and consistent. Do not give up easily. Don't hesitate to start something. If you have an idea, for example, just execute it. Introduce your potential product first to the people closest to you. Ask for their opinion, what they think about the shortcomings of your product. Because the closest people are usually honest. So from there we can improve the product again before we release it to the market. Feel free to start something new!” closed Mrs. Nina at the end of the interview.