The Food The World Forgot: Helianti Hilman live at Grounded

A plant that gives you salt and sugar. A forest “supermarket without the bills.” And a business model that treats farmers, foragers, and fishers like artists with a world stage, not beneficiaries waiting for help. We’re live at the 2026 Grounded Festival in the Otways with Helianti Hilman, founder of Javara, following her mission to help revive Indonesia’s rich food culture and turn food biodiversity into dignified livelihoods.

We talk terroir across an archipelago of landscapes and 1,300 ethnic groups, and what traditional knowledge still holds: slow cooking methods that protect nutrition, hyper-local souring agents and herbs, and delicious ingredients that serve many different functions. Helianti shares vivid examples, from lower-sodium salt in Papua to spice diversity that challenges what “normal” flavors even mean, plus the practical reality of mapping edible ecosystems without damaging them.

Then we get into the reeds in conversation: commercialisation without extraction. Helianti explains why rarity matters more than volume, how Javara develops processing methods that don’t rely on electricity, and how ancient packaging with no plastic, the right narrative, and traceability help indigenous foods compete on quality instead of pity. We also unpack her “artist manager” approach, the Food Artisan School for rural women and youth, cooperative structures for shared infrastructure and financing, and what hotels chasing ESG standards actually need from local supply chains.

We close with questions on sustainability, access, and intellectual property, including the limits of protecting traditional knowledge through trademarks and geographical indication, and why “food is medicine” isn’t a trend but a daily practice embedded in spices, herbs, and low-glycemic palm sugars. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a friend, and leave a rating or review so more people can find the work.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 22 April 2026.

Title image by Alan Benson.

See more photos on the episode web page, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener below. 

Nicole Masters, live in conversation at Grounded for episode 307.

Liz Carlisle on the living ancient roots of regeneration and its healing ground for episode 309 last week.

Music: 

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

Transcript

Festival Setup And Guest Welcome

AJ 0:00

Welcome back everyone to the final session of today in the Iron Bark Tent. If you're gonna stay for this awesome session, settle in. And if you're moving on, just shuffle out now while I introduce our last amazing international special guest for today. Indeed, as a final session, it has to bring it home with a bit of a wet sale, and this is going to it's an honour for me to introduce you, Helianti . G'day, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration. Back live at the 2026 Grounded Festival. Extraordinary Yan Yan Gurt West Farm, stewarded by the Stewart family in the Otways of Victoria, Australia. Taking a fitting cue from last week's episode with Liz Carlisle on the ancient roots of regeneration, powerfully alive today. This was one of the great festival highlights. The first 10 minutes alone will likely blow you away, and it's a heck of a ride from there. Though, apologies you can't taste the samples, and yeah, the next day's cookout was off the charts. But I reckon you can almost taste it through Helianti's vivid descriptions before the audience and I join in conversation about a half hour in. With thanks to the grounded crew for this recording, let's head back to the tent. Helianti Hilman is a celebrated Indonesian food biodiversity advocate, entrepreneur, and founder of Javara, an award-winning company working with thousands of smallholder farmers and food artisans across the archipelago. For almost two decades, she's championed the preservation of Indonesia's indigenous food heritage by transforming rare ancestral ingredients into premium global products. Through her culinary storytelling and product innovation, Helianti bridges traditional wisdom with modern gastronomy, empowering rural communities while elevating Indonesia's biodiversity on the world stage. On the food the world forgot. Please welcome Helianti Hillman.

Helianti 2:12

Well,

From Law To Food Advocacy

Helianti 2:13

um, thank you. Um as AJ said, um, I think I have one of the most romantic jobs in the world, which is bringing back forgotten food culture. And it matches perfectly with my passion, which I like to cook, I like to eat, and I like to travel. So um uh, but I have to do disclaimer a bit. I'm not a farmer, I'm not an agronomist, I'm not a chef, I'm not a food technologist. I used to be a lawyer. Um, and my interaction with the farmers, because I spent two years doing pro bono-legal advice for farmers that were mistreated in their contractual relationship or being criminalized by SIDS company. So um after two years, I think my husband got bored driving me around to visit all these farmers' groups. And at the end he said, I don't think they need a lawyer. What they need is access to markets that are dignifying and respectful. So why don't you be just part of the supply chain and the market chain and give the solutions? Because what you are doing right now, it's too late for them. So um, during that two years of travel, I was amazed because we did live in. We stayed at their houses, we go to their farms, we cook together with them, and there are a lot of ingredients that I've never seen before, even being an Indonesian. At that time, I was 37 years old, and the one that they served me was really blown away for me, is because it matched perfectly with the global diet trends. When you are vegan or you are gluten intolerance, or if you have autoimmune, or if you are, you know, having a cancer or diabetic. This is just amazing that they are sitting on a gold mine of ingredients that you know nobody knows about it. You know, so um that's when we started to explore further. But when we talk about the food that we forgot, actually it's much more beyond the recipes or the ingredients. We are talking about the food biodiversity, we're talking about the cooking techniques that still retains the quality of the nutrition that we're also missing out. Um, so for example, in Indonesia, there is a famous um um cuisine called Randang, which A CNN has put it one of the best um food in the world. People saying, like, you're cooking it for eight hours, nutrition is gone. It's like, yes, if you are using um hot fire stove, but if you are using with the slow cooking methods that they use doing it, we're not using fire, we are using the heat of the fire. That is a completely different way of doing things. And then there are ancestral knowledge. It's just amazing the fact that Indonesia has 1,300 ethnic groups. Ethnic groups, and each one of them, they have their own source of protein, source of carbohydrate, source of salt, sort of sugar, sort of spices. So, for example, in Papua, when I go foraging with Charles Toto, Charles Toto is a um he's the founder of Papua Jungle Chef. So he's like a private chef, but he's cooking for those who are doing expedition in the deep forest of Papua. When you go with them, it's just amazing. And he said a very simple statement that I really stuck at my heart, uh, my heart and my head. He said, Forest and nature is our supermarket without the bills. The question is, do you still recognize the ingredients? Do you know what's edible, not edible? If it's poisonous, how to remove the poison? So that's part of the ancestral knowledge. So that's why I realized that this community actually are food artisans. So they are worldwide to be celebrated. And then we're talking about the wisdom of it, the way they harvest or collect sustainably in such a way that they don't want to harm, because they know that actually they're part of the bigger ecosystem.

Food Biodiversity And Ancestral Cooking

Helianti 6:30

So we learn so much about the wisdom that we decided to use the indigenous Indonesia as our tech line. Because if we carry the wisdom, it will be organic. But organic not necessarily carry the wisdom. So, and then we look into the equipment that they are using. They're cooking, using bamboo, using hot stones, you know, all these different kinds of things when you really think about not only can it carry the flavor, but it also retains the nutrition as well. Of course, there are heritage recipes, but one thing that even for us Indonesian, we forgot that our nation, 17,000 archipelago islands, is actually comprised of many teroar. We have a rainforest, mangrove area, pitland area, uh safana, barren land, highland, volcanic, lowland, coastal area, you know, so and each of these landscape actually carry their own ingredients. So I'm going to pass around, probably AJ, you can help me with that. Some of the ingredients that are so, what do you call it, so mind-blowing that even until now I just cannot, you know, um stop speaking about it. So in Papua, there is a plant-based salt. So the salt is extracted from a plant, but the same plant also produces sugar. Can you imagine one plant, you get the fruits, you get the salt, and you get the sugar. And when you harvested the old branch to extract the salt, then you get more sugar. It's really, it seems like you are pruning the plant. And what's so regenerative about this is that this plant is like a banana, it replicates itself, it has like small babies, so you don't need to do replanting, they will do it themselves. And the way you harvest in such a way is that it will definitely um sustain itself. So um, this is the salt. You can open it, you want to try whether it's salty or not. But the beauty part of it is that the sodium is only 20%. So if you have a high blood pressure, so this is the salt for you. So do you know how many people are suffering from high blood pressure? Almost one billion in the world. You know, so the nature profites actually. So, but the way they're using it, they use like a very um actually the whole brand uh branch, they skin it off, cut it, put it in the soup, then the soup becomes salty. So whenever we traveled, we realized that the role of the community is not the beneficiary, they are the true artists. So basically, we realized soon that actually our role is not to empower them because they're the ones who empower us, actually. So our role is more like an artist manager. So we are the manager and they are the artists. And the role of artist manager is to make sure that they are presentable to the world and create a stage for them to showcase what they're really good at. So my journey 20 years ago started because I met this amazing guardian of our landscape and our food biodiversity. But and then when they start to take me to all these terroirs, I'm impressed that even the most unfertile land is actually abundant with nati food. But that knowledge is gone. So if only we can retain that knowledge from each of the terroirs, there should not be any stunting or malnutrition because the nature profile. So what we've been working in the last 20 years is to rebrand the nati food, making it sexy and hype, and connecting it to the market, because we believe that the only way we can sustain this, if there is a sustainable consumption, then there will be a sustainable production. So, and then all these beautiful ingredients. The minute I saw this, and I said, like, oh my god, this one can go to Italy, this one can go to Japan. I can relate because before setting up Javara, I've been traveling to 50 countries. And because I'm a foodist, like to eat, like to cook, so I pretty much understand the palette flavors of each of the regions. So when we could not find the market in Indonesia, we are obliged to do export. So our company is um, we started off really well through the exports. It's only after the pandemic that the Indonesian market is catching up. So all these ingredients are amazing and many of them are widely grown. I mean, I think you also have like porcelain here when you walk around, right? Uh of course in Indonesia we have so many um, what do you call it, um, moringa, which is very rich in protein and calcium. But we also have a plant called uh the Latin name called Centela Asiatica, uh, it's gotucola, which is a brain food. So in the past, they fed their baby with that because it's good for their brain development, but they don't know that because at that time the research was not

Terroir Treasures Salt Sugar Spices

Helianti 11:55

backing it up. It was just a practice within the generation. Okay, if you have a six-month baby ready for solid food, okay, uh start to give them with the um with the porslin, with the moringa, and then with also the um um cotocola. So again, spices. So I started to look into the spices. ASEAN countries, under the scientific journal, it's um mapped out that we have about 600 spices and herbs. That's and Indonesia have almost 90% out of it. But if we look into the ethnobotany, what's kept hidden within the community? Again, it's 1,300 ethnic groups, right? Indonesia has 40,000 spices and herbs. So I said, like, oh no, it's impossible. But once you go to them, I was just like, oh my god, you know, for example, in Papua, they don't grow garlic. So one day I tasted their snack that has a garlic flavor. And I said, like, do you grow garlic? No. Do you get it from the market? No. Where did you get it? Oh, we have a bark like cassia cinnamon, but it tastes like garlic. They call it as kulim wood. So it's just amazing the way they can source in the nature the different kinds of flavors. So, for example, on the left is the type of sour ingredients that they use in their cooking. So different region using a different ingredient. Of course, the most common one, like lime, cavir lime, this is very common. Tamarin is very common, but there are also other places that are using a very native ingredients that give a beautiful sour flavor that signifies their cooking. And on the right, uh type of um herbs, but I don't think it justifies the justice in terms of the diversity. Because, for example, uh two years ago we started a project in South Sumatra surrounding a 7th-century temple, and one of the recipes that were rediscovered was a water rifle eel that cooked with 120 aromatic herbs collected from the forest. And I said, like, wait, wait, wait, wait, how did you know all these 120 leaves are edible? And then they were smiling, and they say, like, oh, easy, ma'am. Whatever that the monkey can eat, we can eat. Ah, okay. So you've been following the monkey. Yes, we take notes, what are they consuming? So and it's like, why do you have to put so many? We don't want to harm the plant. We only take a small bit from each of the trees so that they can continue to grow. We will not do that, right? You will not travel the whole forest just to pick up a bit of everything. But they do because they realize that you know they should not harm the harmony of the each of the tree itself. And yes, we do influence by ancient trade, by colonialism, because, for example, chili is not originally from Indonesia. It was brought in by Portuguese and the Spanish during the colonization. But what's surprising is that different parts of Indonesia have a different chili. You know, so we started to recollect all the chilies, and I think it's only like one-fourth of the chili that uh we uh we we can find in Indonesia. So right now there are about 400 chilies that are available in different islands, different ethnicity, different region, uh, with a different uh, what do you call it, um, hit level. So these are the type of books, a partial portion of the uh of the box that I managed to get and try. Um so some uh many of them actually coming from uh Papua or Kalimantan. And then again, I started this as a personal mission, and then of course I got my family to support. My husband was the first supporters, and then my son is always like the brand ambassador because he always liked to uh teach people and take them along in the journey as well. But and then it becomes a community movement. The minute we treat the farmers, foragers, and fishers as an artist, they realize their value. The minute we bring them to take over the kitchen of five-star hotels, they realize their value. The minute we put them to a food festival head-to-head with Missalang Star chefs, then they realize their value. So, of course, no chefs has been cooking ingredients with 120, right? You know, it's never been heard of. So it's very easy to really get a hype uh for what they're doing because they simply are sitting on a combination of the biodiversity and the food culture itself. So this is uh Unita Ulim. Unita is um is a tribe, um is um from a tribe in Papua, um and the one that she holds is actually the one that extracted to be the salt. So originally the way they're using it is they just peel off the skin, cut it off, put it in a soup, and then the soup becomes salty. In a different way, if they using it not for a soup, they would burn uh the wood and the acids become salty. But you know that we will not be able to commercialize the whole branch, right? You know, I will not be able to enter Australia with that, you know. So we realized in 2017 when we discovered that. So I came back to Jakarta with 100 kilos of that branch, and I gave it to our food technologies team, and I asked them, can you find a way how to extract it, uh, the salt out of this branch? But make sure the technique that you are using is not using electricity. Because we want to train back that technique to the community, and most likely they will not have a stable source of electricity. So within three months, they manage. So we invite different communities where they have this type of plant, and then we uh teach them once they are comfortable in doing the production, we help them in setting up their facility and also doing the registration for commercial. So now it becomes a commercial product, and we also export this to France. Um, and we also received an award in 2018 for CL innovation. Um, of course, we don't have competition. Actually, it's very easy to win the word uh because we have no competition. Um, so and sometimes uh what we forgot is you can you understand the tree because, like, for example, in Indonesia, when you ask people aren't sugar, they will know. But what they're not realize is actually the tree has a male and female. So the female version they will give fruits, actually, it's a fruits, but the male version giving the nectar, which they can turn

Making Indigenous Foods Market Ready

Helianti 19:20

it into sugar, and then they can turn it into vinegar. So a lot of trees or plants actually has a multiple utilization. So people market normally familiar with one application, but they're not realizing that actually many parts of the plants are actually edible. So that's why one of the ways that we work is how to map out to understand the utilization of every part of the ingredient. So take coconut trees. I'm sure here you're familiar with coconut water, coconut milk, uh, or probably coconut chips, and then the flour will give you sugar. But at the same time, if you look into the left, actually that's the flour, and the texture is like a mincemeat. So if you're fegan, so this is what we did because we did a state function during the G20 in um in Bali, and they say like, Heli, one of the uh head of the country, they're fegan. But we want to use the same recipe, but we just need a different ingredient that are fegan. So it's like, okay, then why don't you use that? You know, so it's very interesting that even to mimic the texture of a meat, there are so many plants that we can do that. So another example, I will open it tomorrow during the cooking show. So if you are an early person and would like to test it out, we're going to have a cooking show. So this one, you are familiar with jackfruit, right? So jackfruit has a sister, it's um almost similar like jackfruit, but it's a different one. What we use is actually not the fruit, but the discarded skin, the inside one. So the daya tribe in Kalimantan, they have a way of fermenting that skin, and after eight to twelve months, the texture almost like um what do you call it, beef jerky. So we use that as well in a lot of our vegan cooking. So another example on what the coconut is used, you can help you pass around, there are four of it. So in ancient valley villages, when they have to do foraging or they want to travel, the way they carry their salt is by wrapping the salt inside coconut leaves and slowly smoke it for three days. And that's their container. They have no plastic, they have no other container, that's their container. The reason why they smoke it, because you know, salt is hygroscopic, right? It absorbs the water. So by smoking. It it becomes um it becomes more dry, but at the same time it is more flavorful. So if you see a small tiny pin on top of it, that's where they take off, pour it, use it, and then close it again. So that's their ancient way of doing the packaging of their salt. So we export to France uh exactly with this, without any other packaging, just as it is. Okay, so we have we also have uh three different kinds of um native pepper, which is long pepper, kube pepper, and andaliman batax pepper. The long pepper is actually the oldest pepper used in the world civilization. So um the Roman Empire, they've been using the long pepper. So the ancient trait goes thousands before um before Christ. Uh, you can open it, you can smell it. Uh make sure do not try unless I allow you, because some of it will uh make your tongue numb. So uh, but we're going to use it as an application tomorrow during the cooking. And this pepper actually is very good for gin infusion. So uh a lot of our clientele is using it for cocktail, uh for gin, you know, for mocktail. Um, we export to France to um three Missalang star uh chef uh that has a spice company, and they even book three months before the harvest time because they want to have the best quality. So, again, in terms of um fat, actually, I have another one. Okay, this one you can open and try. So, this is a forest nut called canary. So, normally it grows in volcanic uh small islands, and this nut is on actually functioning not only, of course, giving food, but actually it holds uh the water and avoid the landslide. So that's why having this tree is important not only in terms of gastronomic purpose, but also for uh maintaining our ecosystem. I will pass it around, feel free. I don't know whether the one in the back will survive that. Yeah, so uh the company that we set up uh 18 years ago, it's called Javara. Javara means champion because we celebrate champion products from champion farmers. And we focus on three things good food, good health, and good impact. So any products that we create, uh we curate and we present is always have a traceability and story behind um the product itself. Yes, so this is a short video about it. We don't have any sound? Okay, so uh anyway, you can also find this uh video at the YouTube. So I just wanted to show you the diversity of the ingredients that we've been working on, including on the food colorants. So we've been exporting plant-based food colors to France and even salt. As you noted from this video, is that our business model is quite unique. So we're a company that nurtures rural companies, so we help the communities to have their uh facility production facilities, get their uh distribution uh license, and also uh develop their branding. So we have a FlexIP store in Jakarta, which we provide a full experience of shop, eat, and learn. Um, so when you go to our store, you can see curated products from across Indonesia. Um, and you will also have the um thematic experience of dining um presented by different communities. So we uh we did like um uh Papua Forest Feast, Kalimantan Forest Feast, or representing different um ethnicity. So again, this becomes the stage for our artists because as an artist manager, we always have to find a gig for them uh to make sure that you know people um realize the potential that they provide. So what we help them to build is one, how they use their cultural assets as their unique value proposition, because this is a comparative advantage which the others would not be able to do. So, for example, uh that stone jar is actually our salt packaging that we export to Italy. So the same product it has a function, uh two functions. One is a jar, but it's also functioned as a pestle and mortar. Another way of what we do is we rebrand um the um heritage food. For example, we export um our rice to Italy in this bamboo basket as a collection of our heirloom rice biodiversity. So we shifted rice from being a staple food as being a cultural food because it comes with the story, and we bring the farmers also during the uh the trade show. Another one is we help them to fine-tune the recipes to make sure that it relates with the market. So, for example, we have this um toffee uh made from sticky rice, arenga sugar, and coconut milk. But you can imagine, right? Carbo meets carbo from the sticky rice with the sugar. So it becomes sort of like a turn-off for the customers. But they like the flavor. So what we did, we remove the sticky rice and make a coconut gem with it. And now um you can find it in a Marriott Hotel in Flores Island, in Bali. Um, so they use it as a breakfast. Previously, when it was still, they call it as dodel, nobody buys. You ask any younger generation, when was the last time you buy dodol? They will say, like, what is dodel? That will be the question, you know. So once we shift it, change the format into something that is relatable, changing it from a festive product into a daily consumption, then it changed the dynamic of the product. So it gives a new meaning and a new life to the ancient recipes. So we also forced to also adopt the technology to help the farmers to

Climate Proof Salt And Tourism Stages

Helianti 28:10

be resilient towards the climate change. So, for example, for the soap farmers, it's will be it has been very daunting with the climate change because they could not anymore predict when the rain is coming. In the past, in Bali, in the coastal Bali, they only stopped production three months of the year. But right now, June is raining coming, July, which is supposed to be hot season, raining is coming. So by giving them um uh what do you call it, uh solar house, they can do all year long. And it becomes faster because normally it took them four days to uh from the sea brines to become uh crystal salt. Now they only need one day or two days. Because inside that, even if outside is raining, they still have a 32 degree, or if outside is 30 degrees, 32 degree, inside is 76 degrees Celsius. And the beauty part is that they get pyramid salt. So the pyramid salt can only happen because, and this is not molded yet, it's naturally acute during the crystallization. Why we can do that is because it has a very high mineral content. Uh, if you have a combination of high mineral content and the sun, and then you will get the um that result. Do I have uh still a few minutes to style the video? Okay. So this is an example how we help the community to reconnect back with their landscape, food by the sea, and recipes, and we train them to become a destination, a world destination of gastronomy tourism. So the ladies that are um handling this destination of gastronomy tourism in um until two years ago, actually they were only selling instant noodles and sasset coffee and bottled, manufactured bottled drinks. So uh we help them to reconnect back with ancient recipes, ancient cooking techniques, and then present it as a destination. So this is our promotional um item. And when we did the training, what we do is we engage travel operator and we also engage the media. So by the time they finish the training, it's already up in um destination, epicure, um, you know, travel magazine. So they already got the exposure for that. So their landscape is comprised of river, swamp, and uh, and forests. So that's why we give the experience with all this terroir. So all the vehicle used, because it's a 4,000 hectare um complex, we use electric uh uh bike, electric becha, and electric boat. And you will note it that there is no single plastic that we use. So we train them to do that. So a lot of chefs is joining this trip because it's like an exploration uh trip for them to learn new cooking techniques, ingredients. So this is dinner by the temple. So uh by doing this gastronomy tourism, their revenue uh increase uh by 25 to 30 times compared to the previous. So simply by reconnecting it with their um landscape uh terroir, recipes and cooking techniques and presenting it as um okay. I'm finished with the video. I think we got stopped. It's okay. I'm done with it anyway. So we'll yeah. This one I have to play. Sorry, this is so fun. So so this is um the Papa Jungle Chef, uh, which they are cooking using hot stones. So um when we presented that in Jakarta and eventually he also cooking in Italy, um he he was so shocked when we do the pricing. Of course, as an as the artist manager, you want to price your artist quite high, right? You know, it's like who's going to buy, you know, with this much? And I was like, no worries, you just concentrate on you know doing the cooking and doing the explanation. I was sold out. 60 uh tickets was completely sold out. So that's how they cook in the forest. They use the hot stones, and normally they even cook using this site enough to feed the whole community. It's good, it's past lunchtime, otherwise you will be hungry looking at that. So I will pass it on to you if there is any question.

Q&A Markets And Narratives In Australia

AJ 32:32

That has made us hungry, I think. That's amazing. It makes me wonder firstly, is any of any of this product available here in Australia retail?

Helianti 32:42

No, not yet. Yeah, we're looking forward. Yeah. So uh before the pandemic, we used to supply for four pillar gin for the spices uh through um spice company in Australia, but apparently the person got cancer uh and she stopped the business. So we stopped uh sending that.

AJ 32:59

Yeah, okay. You know what else it makes me think is I've seen places around the country similar, indigenous cultures around the country that have these plants that that blow you away that really do show you that everything already existed. And it it makes me wonder what sort of opportunities there are in Australia. And I don't suppose you've had any exposure to that in Australia and what you see.

Helianti 33:24

We do, we do actually um it's uh uh boost culinary culture, actually, it's also amazing uh in terms of the biodiversity because you have the the landscape is also very unique. Um and I think it's a matter of redocumenting it, uh doing the food mapping, food culture mapping, and um and make sure that okay, so this is the problem. A lot of these initiatives is done by donor or government and it only becomes reports. And when it only becomes reports, then that's it. And then all of a sudden people forget about it. And then sometimes if they try to commercialize it, it's um the narrative is not right. For example, we always tell to all the community either we go high or we go home. There is no space for being mediocre. So we don't want the consumers to buy because they feel sorry. They have to buy because it's the best quality, it's something that matches with the need of the customers. So putting the right narrative, the right branding uh in presenting the indigenous food or native food to make it relevant for the white audience, that is very important. Otherwise, it will remain, you know, a sidetrack and um just being forgotten.

AJ 34:41

Well, this is what stands out to me as much as anything that you're you're talking about uh clientele that otherwise would just procure the bog standard, ultra-processed even stuff. So there seems to be no limit to what this can achieve.

Helianti 34:57

Yeah, so that's why we soon realize after Javara operates um what five, six years, that uh we need a school of rural entrepreneurship. So in 2017, we set up uh this school, we call it a food artisan school, focusing on rural women, youth, and indigenous community, and help them to monetize their food culture and food biodiversity, uh creating a different kind of businesses. So we give them four options of business. One is to create product from nature to product, like the one that you saw. Um, second is to do um rural food service, so rural cafe, rural restaurants, especially for those who

Building The Food Artisan School

Helianti 35:40

are located in a destination tourism area like snorkeling, diving, um, hiking, birds watching. It's all in remote areas, but they have a very high-end tourism. Um, and then the third is that through gastronomy tourism, uh, which uh you saw. And then the fourth, we have uh what we call a curriculum on uh creative to uh creative farming. So how to make the best use of their farm, uh, either through farm tourism or farm to table, um, or uh focusing on um what do you call it, nursery of forgotten uh food plants, which give them more money than selling the actual uh produce itself.

AJ 36:20

I'm also hearing like at the substrate level, there must be an enormous amount of trust that you have with these people. I mean, probably now easy, but at the start, was that difficult relationship building?

Helianti 36:33

So, okay, for them seeing is believing. So I think one of the things that very stand out about this community, they used to live with the ecosystem. They are very sensitive in reading the nature, and they are also reading you. Yeah, so they are reading people. So as long as you come in with good intention, then you will not have any problems. But in our specific case, it's actually they're the one who's reaching out to us in the beginning. So I was recruited by them because starting as their lawyer, and then after that, we move towards commercialization, and then it's become a word of mouth from one group to another, and then everybody wants to join our ecosystem. But it's important to first action base, so don't give promises. You know, in our approach, within three months, they come to us, work on the businesses, within three months, they already have a commercialization out of it. So very quick process. Yeah, we have a bootcamp and we already have the market infrastructure. If it's beyond three months, uh they already lose the interest because they've been promised so many things. Um, so for them really uh uh for us to showcase the full circle from idea to commercial in a very short time is important regardless of how tiny that is, and then they can build from there.

AJ 38:05

Yeah, fascinating. Any of you, would you like to? Yeah. Thanks.

Audience question 38:10

So good. This is fantastic. We had a business in Darwin, based in Darwin, called Australian gourmet wild foods, and we used to forage um aloe tea and also rosella fruit, um, which is a hibiscus flower. Yeah, and we it was seasonal because it we were out for the wet season. But yeah, it it was a really successful, but for what we were doing to compare to you've just completely gone elsewhere. But the tourism market was really where we sat. And there Darwin has a huge have you been to Darwin? No, no, it'd be really interesting for you to have a look because the multiculturalism is extraordinary and it really is an extension of Asia more than down south, as we'd call it. So yeah, we'd have market stalls and a lot of our produce, and we, you know, on a far more, I guess, tourism-oriented angle as opposed to your artisan angle, you know, we do coat of arms casserole with a damper and sartes, crocodile meat, uh, magpie, goose, camel, um, barramundi. So the tourists just loved, they wanted to try it, you know. So that was a a real um yeah. But this is really takes me back. Um, and you've certainly taken it to Alex level, and I just want to go and talk to those men again, you know. Um, and I want to go there.

Cooperatives Hotels And Value Chains

Helianti 39:40

So at least, yeah. You know, we can direct you to different kinds of experience um that we have. Um, but I think um I realized that once we start going, Javara alone as a market access player is not sufficient. So we started to set up the school in 2017, and then all of a sudden we have 3,500 alumni from the school with different kinds of products, businesses, and they were like scattered around. And so, like, okay, now we have a second problem is how to structure them after they graduate from our school. So, and then two years ago, we set up a cooperative, uh, which basically brings them together so that we can do collaborative growth. So uh there is a shared resources, there is a short in uh shared infrastructure, uh shared market access, uh shared uh financial access. Because without that, uh the tiny bits will not be able to do that. But collectively, we will have an easier way of getting the access to the market. So, for example, because we become collective, uh, we managed to get the central bank of Indonesia give us the budget for marketing. So our marketing budget for exports and also for trade zero domestic is funded by the central bank. And then uh we managed to get um, what do you call it, a channeling for uh financing in a very low interest, which it would not be able uh possible if they are individual enterprises. But as a collective, we managed to secure that kind of uh funding. So uh that's why the co-op becoming very important. And then we have the last problem, uh, because uh we started the last two years, we started to have a lot of five-star hotels come to us because they're they have to comply with environmental social governance, right? Uh they have to source locally, they have to work with the local farmers, local, small, medium enterprises, but it's a big problem with the for them because the food safety standard is not there. The quality of the taste doesn't match with their clientele, the packaging, the narrative. So eventually they come to us and ask us to help them to sort that out. Um and it has been very successful with uh one of the Marriott Resort in Flores Island, and now the other five star hotels also contacting us and also ask us to uh do the same. So having the whole collective, collaborative, is somehow allow us to, what do you call it, and negotiate better. So, for example, most of the uh food service industry they would pay you 45 days or 60 days, but because we bring in the concept of traceable environmental, social impact with the quality, food safety elements and the narrative, beautiful packaging. So we manage to get them pay 50% upfront. So that's a game changer, but it will not be able to do that if we don't work as a collaborative, because they know that they work with us, then they get solutions to their problems. So the last problem we had is because so far we only manage the distribution and retailing in Jakarta and Greater Jakarta. For other cities, we use distributor. So there is a disconnecting there because the distributor is acting only like an extension of your logistic company, delivering and collecting the payment. But there is no relationship. Well, in our case, we're not selling food products, we're selling food culture of Indonesia. And selling the food culture means you have to build that connection on the values, um, on the people behind the product. So that's why uh last year we set up our own uh distribution and retailing company focusing on value-based and experience uh base. So, for example, San Regis Asia Pacific, they sent their um uh chefs to our uh flagship store to learn about different kinds of ingredients and different kinds of spices, you know. Or like um some of the uh media, uh international media, they send their uh food journalists uh to uh to learn from us on the different angles of story that they can capture. Um or the Indonesian uh foreign minister, every time they're going to post uh diplomats, uh they will send it to us uh to understand about the gastronomy diplomacy. So doing collective work is very important. And building the ecosystem is very important.

AJ 44:02

Any other hands out there? Yeah.

Sustainability Rarity And Knowledge Rights

AJ 44:05

Robin.

Audience question (Robin) 44:06

Thank you so much, Heliante. This is really beautiful. And I love how you've brought the value back to traditional foods and the culture that goes around it. One of the couple of other sort of risks I see, and it'd be really interesting to know how you manage this. One is the idea that when this product becomes really, there's a lot of demand for it, how do you manage the ecological sustainability of that so that it doesn't get exploited and doesn't affect the landscape? But also ensuring the indigenous tribes still have accessibility to that product. Because I've I have seen in other areas where you know the people who grow ragi flour, for example, don't actually get to eat the ragi flour anymore because it goes out to these high-quality markets and stuff like that. And so the people who need that nutrition who are doing the work don't get the value from that product. So just wondering if you can speak to some of that.

Helianti 45:07

Okay. When working with rare products and indigenous community, we built that understanding that their value stands on the rarity of it, not on the volume. The minute it becomes volume-based, then it lost their value and it will be a great loss for them. So that's why putting the pricing and the quantity that we release to the market is very important to that. But whenever there is a growing demand, what we do is do not put the stress only on one region. So because in Indonesia, there are uh, I think about um four big islands that have the same landscape and the same vegetation, for example, with Nipah. So when we train, we don't train only from one origin. So we train those from Sumatra, we train those from Kalimantan. So we spread the sourcing so that it doesn't concentrate in one region alone. And so the farmers is actually very simple. They're not greedy. Uh they know exactly how much they need to live sufficiently. Um, so the grid doesn't come from them, the grid comes from the outside. So when we work with them, um, the first assignment that we give them during the training is for them to do food culture mapping, food biodiversity and food culture mapping so that they understand what are the vegetation um that have potentials, and we'll lend them our market eye to navigate which products that may have a stand of being competitive and interesting about the market. But one thing that we really put um efforts on is whenever we give them the tools to do the mapping, we did not ask the result from them because it's supposed to stay with them. So we only ask them to share with us if they want to commercialize it, either through products or through gastronomy experience. So we only take the knowledge only based on what they share with us for the purpose of their business, because our role as the artist manager, we need to know that, right? You know, so for us, whenever we do the mapping and understand the potential, we give the business back to the community. So the ownership of the facility is not with us, so we don't own any of the facility of the production, even if we buy the equipment or we finance it, eventually they pay back to us through credits, uh discounts. Uh so for example, if I pay like say $1,000, so $100 will be the installment of the investment that we give to them. So after two, three years, it becomes theirs. So it's very important to decentralize the ownership of the assets. So that's when they have a full control. So one is that they have to understand which market that we are targeting so that we're not um bound to the volume. And second is that they have to protect uh their knowledge, and we're not going to ask them, although we give them the tools, but basically the ownership of the assets stays with them. Um, they only share the one that they're already ready to commercialize. So, but when there is a demand for a higher demand, so we manage by a consolidation of supply and sources from different regions. So we take a bit from here, a bit from here, a bit from here. So, for example, when we export a container of coconut sugar, for example, actually it's a contribution from 120 farmers, you know, rather than one farmer, and then we force them to, you know, to scale that becomes like uh what do you call monoculture? We don't want that. We want to maintain uh the nature as it is.

AJ 49:02

Relating to that, reaching back into your background, your legal background, the IP intellectual property stuff, this is what you focused on in as a lawyer, right? So is this sort of how you manage to is, I guess, why it was front of mind for you to have it structured so? And are there other things that are in place to protect that?

Helianti 49:23

Yeah, so unfortunately in Indonesia, the protection for the traditional knowledge and the traditional indigenous IP is not really there. So the only tools that we can use is a trademark and the geographical indication. Um, so geographical indication is basically almost like a trademark, but it relates with the region and with the community that are producing that. So that is the only IP tools that we can uh use. So the rest we have to keep it as a trade secret.

AJ 49:50

Yeah, yeah, interesting. Any more? Or am I just gonna call Oh, yeah, there is last one.

Audience question 49:56

A lot of the food you're focusing on is for flavor. Are you looking into a lot of these plants would have medicinal properties? Are you looking into going into marketing those also?

Helianti 50:08

Um, yeah, so I think similar to the session that Stephen uh Chan has. So with it in Indonesia, food is medicine. So uh the uses of spices, the uses of herbs, basically you're eating your medicine as uh uh when you are consuming your daily meals, you know. So it's not a separate kind of uh uh like this is food and this is uh medicine. So it's all in integrated in there. So that's why um um reviving back the ancient recipe is very important because it's also at the same time nourishing and also uh improving your health. Like, for example, what kind of salt you use, uh what kind of sugar you use, uh, because all the palm-based sugars that we have is all low glycomic index, um, and it gives you like a slow release energy. Either it's like coconut sugar, arenga sugar, nipa sugar, or um lontar sugar, it's all low glycomic. So that's why um it's not separated, but it's uh integrated into our daily meals. Yeah.

Closing Thanks And How To Support

AJ 51:13

Absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much, Heliati Hilman. What an enormous day. Thank you very much for making it so. What an enormous effort from the organizing team, hey, small but mighty, Matthew, with Ollie, Georgie, Nadia, and all the volunteers. Ben, thanks for your help in here today. Our hosts, the three generations of Stewart family. They have drifted through here at times. Invaluable partners and sponsors, especially major sponsor Upper Barwon Land Care Network. Extremely amazing support coming from them. The alternative for making it nylon waste free, and all our special guests, of course, here today. Would you join me on the count of three in making the loudest noise you can possibly make so they know well and truly how grateful we are? One and two and three. I love the looks we get. Thank you. Good night. That was Helianti Hillman, founder of Javara, live in conversation at the 2026 Grounded Festival in the Otways of Victoria. With thanks again to the festival team for generously sharing that recording. And if you'd like to hear more from the festival, including the Stephen Chen session, Helianti mentioned, Food is Medicine, another serious highlight, stay tuned to the Grounded Podcast. Meantime, in case you've missed it, you can hear Nicole Masters in Conversation with me live on stage at the festival, back in episode 307, titled Hard Work Takes No Discipline. There are some photos on that episode webpage 2, and a few more on today's. If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon or Substack, where you can get some writing too. This episode was only possible with your support. So thanks very much, Alison Lullfitz, Sally Fields, Justin von Purger, Luke Sweet, and Kersti Wagstaff, for your generous support for over four years now, not one of them taken for granted. And thank you all for listening, sharing, rating, reviewing. It all helps. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.