A Pepper Tomorrow: Under Sukanto Tanoto, Siak Becomes the Capital of Pepper

Sukanto Tanoto is a businessman with a heart for the community. The chairman of RGE – which manages resource-based companies such as APRIL, Sateri, and Pacific Oil and Gas – has spent a lifetime building his empire with the 4Cs philosophy: creating good for the Community, Country, Climate, and Company. It’s not just a philosophy he pays lip service to either; his companies have, impressively, had a long track record of doing good, and creating shared value, for the community. Recently PT RAPP, APRIL’s Indonesian subsidiary, extended its help to the local community of Siak with their Community Development (CD) programme.

From Paper to pepper, the missing link

A Pepper Tomorrow: Under Sukanto Tanoto, Siak Becomes the Capital of Pepper

APRIL’s CD programme is a direct result of Sukanto Tanoto’s mission of doing good for the community. Under the programme, APRIL helps small to medium-sized enterprises take off, through the facilitation of access to loans, training, and resources. In Siak, APRIL’s CD programme helped provide the local community with 700 rods of pepper seeds. With the aid, the community is now one step closer to becoming the capital of pepper.

Shaking things up, peppering Siak with seeds

According to the head of local Pepper Farmers Group, Hadi Winoyo, the help provided by Sukanto Tanoto’s APRIL has come at just the right time. Thankful for APRIL’s understanding of their desire to join the movers and shakers for the pepper industry, he hopes that Siak would now become the “centre of pepper in the Kerinci Kanan area”.

The welcome boost to the morale of the Siak’s pepper purveyors is one of APRIL’s many outreach programmes. Throughout the years, APRIL has made the CD programme a signature of its company. Its history has been peppered with instances of aid being provided, entrepreneurs being supported, and whole communities being empowered. With Siak farmers now walking with a pep in their step, Sukanto Tanoto may rest easier, knowing one more community has been helped.