Kampoeng Djamoe Organik Martha Tilaar

Martha Tilaar Group is one of Indonesia’s foremost purveyors of innovative, high-quality beauty products and services. With its wide-ranging stable of sub-brands under the Martha Tilaar umbrella brand, the group offers an impressive array of beauty and well-being choices for women of all ages and income groups. While many of its products and treatments feature the ancient wisdom of traditional Indonesian herbal ingredients (jamu) and other natural plant extracts, Martha Tilaar also produces a wide variety of up-to-the-minute color cosmetics and skincare, body care and hair care products for the modern woman.

From its humble beginnings as a beauty salon in the early 1970s, the company has grown into an integrated, world-class, total beauty provider which exports its products all over the world. The company’s key brands have won numerous prizes and consistently achieved the country’s highest ratings for brand awareness, reflecting Martha Tilaar’s strong focus on beauty products specifically designed for the Eastern woman.

As a natural cosmetic producer from the beginning, we have always integrated socially and environmentally responsible practices into our business activities and blended Indonesian medicinal plants, Eastern beauty, our rich culture and environment together in our mission. The three pillars of our corporate social responsibility focus on environmental and cultural stewardship, caring communities, and empowering women’s wellness.
In 1998, the company established the 10-hectare garden located in Cikarang industrial estate, West Java, which was conceived and developed by Dr. Martha Tilaar as a result of her total dedication to preserving Indonesian biodiversity, especially in medicinal, aromatic and cosmetic (MAC) plants. The main objective is to serve as a center for environmental and cultural education and a holistic garden that enhances our physical, spiritual and moral balance.

Since the garden’s land is very marginal and dry, it took extra effort and dedicated commitment by our team for more than 5 years in applying good organic agriculture principles to transform it so it could be planted with grass, trees, and MAC plants. Finally, after 8 years of hard work, the sustainable launch of Kampoeng Djamoe Organik (KaDO) was celebrated by Indonesian Environment Minister Ir. Rachmat Witoelar in June 2006.

As an Indonesian company producing herbal and natural cosmetic products, we obtain our herbal materials from the local community and farmers in Indonesian provinces. Through partnerships with local farmers to provide high-quality plant materials, we can secure their supply to meet our needs all year round. For the time being, we always check farmers’ activities in cultivating the medicinal plants to produce simplisia (dried plant materials). It is important to supervise them at every step of plant cultivation and post-harvest treatment to achieve a high standard quality of plant materials. To efficiently and effectively transfer knowledge of good agricultural practices as well as good post-harvest practices to farmers and the local community, we have also established in ‘Kampoeng Djamoe Organik’ complete training facilities for organic farming and post harvest treatment of MAC plants.

Training in organic farming has been conducted since 2001, when we started giving free training in organic farming and simple production management to 20 cooperative farmers throughout Indonesia. In 2003, we also published a book on the organic farming system for Indonesian “empon-empon” (in the Zingiberaceae family, like ginger, Javanese turmeric, galangal). Our goal is to ensure that the organic plant cultivation system is being effectively implemented to support the supply chain process and conserve original Indonesian seeds and plant diversity. We then began to work with the Indonesian Agriculture Minister and Indonesian NGOs to conduct training on the organic farming system and good post-harvest practices for medicinal plants and promote them in Indonesia through printed and electronic media. Now we already have more than 200 cooperative farmers from Aceh to Papua.
We have been collecting plant species from their habitats one-by-one since the year 2000, so we now have about 600 species of Indonesian MAC plants. Moreover, ‘Kampoeng Djamoe Organik’ was planned as a green area in downtown Cikarang and to serve as a carbon trap and oxygen factory for the community. All program activities here are designed to achieve spiritual, physical and moral balance. These include training in organic farming and post-harvest treatment, agent development for green actions, rising awareness of global warming, herb-use training for healthy living, outdoor activities, promotion of the community’s green products, fun-learning for children and life-enhancing programs for senior citizens.

We use this holistic garden based on organic precepts as a center for environmental education to enhance the balance of mind, beauty and behavior. Through ‘Kampoeng Djamoe Organik’, we are trying to improve the quality and beauty of the environment through the collection of MAC plants and by spreading a new concept of agriculture through educational activities and natural relaxation. We are also endeavoring to conserve Indonesia’s biodiversity by applying win-win solutions for all stakeholders and the environment itself.

In the long term, ‘Kampoeng Djamoe Organik Martha Tilaar’ has provided a beautiful and pleasant environment in the heart of Cikarang city with high added value in supporting the agrobusiness of MAC plants and ultimately stimulating the birth of “Environmental Heroes” in urban and industrial areas. There are so many benefits offered to visitors, such as fresh air in a green garden in the center of the city, relaxation, and education as well as broader knowledge about MAC plants and their uses. Next, the garden will also host an Eastern Spa, herbal laboratory, and School for Nature that will make this area a ‘Health Care & Education Center’, providing a traditional touch with modern nuances while serving as a hospitality host for global consumers.