[WATCH] Black Garlic: Using social media to bring back the joy of home cooking

Black Garlic, an Indonesian 'food materials' catering business startup that began its journey in 2015, has leaned towards a digital marketing strategy, using social media to promote its services.

The business provides its customers with monosodium glutamate (MSG) free ingredients for home cooking instead of ready-to-eat meals, focusing on bringing back the joy of cooking at home.

"The idea of Black Garlic is a place that provides food materials, with everything measured out, processed and packaged individually, so that the cooking process at home is much faster," Black Garlic CEO Michael Saputra told The Jakarta Post.

Black Garlic is active mostly on Instagram and Facebook and currently has around 24,200 followers and 26,600 likes, respectively.

"We focus more on two platforms because Black Garlic is a food-related business and food is usually related to photos and videos," Michael said.

Michael and his team also utilise technology to analyse customer behavior.

He explained that the platforms were chosen because they could accommodate customer interaction, such as sharing food reviews, giving feedback, watching food instructions and giving menu suggestions.

"We deliberately chose digital marketing because we think that the channel is potentially the best one to scale up the business in the future," he added.

In its website, the startup business offers customers an array of continuously changing menus with the ingredients for main courses, breakfasts, desserts, and also children's lunches, starting from Rp 60,000 (US$ 4.61) for two persons to Rp 100,000 (US$ 7.68) for four. 

Customers are able to access the menus on Black Garlic's website, as well as choose convenient delivery schedules before placing an order online. Each delivery comes with a usage label, step-by-step recipe, and seasonings to make it easier and comfortable for the customers to cook at their own homes.

All the menus are directly supervised by renowned culinary expert William Wongso, whose daughter Olivia Wongso is chief production officer of the startup.

"Through Black Garlic, I want to be able to share with other housewives that cooking can be fun and it doesn't need to create stress," Olivia said.