To find solutions to these conditions, a team of lecturers from the Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) under the Institute for Community Service (LPM) conducted a community service program aimed at frozen meatball culinary businesses in Medan. The team consisted of Beby Kendida Hasibuan, S.E., M.Si., as the Head of the Service Team and members of Prof. Dr. Prihatin Lumbanraja, S.E., M.Si. and Prof. Dr. Arlina Nurbaity Lubis, S.E., MBA. The activity was carried out at the partner’s residence, Dika Trisna Wulansari, whose address is Jl. Bunga Wijaya Kesuma Gang Bunga Wijaya XXVI No. 2 Medan. Dika is a frozen meatball business owner.

Beby Kendida said the current condition of the COVID-19 pandemic that is sweeping the world affects not only the health sector but also the economic sector. About 88% of companies affected by the pandemic have suffered losses in their operational sector.

“One of the ways companies reduce these losses is by reducing employees. The Ministry of Labor noted that 17.8% of companies have made layoffs during the pandemic. In addition, 25.6% of companies have laid off their workers, and 10% of companies have done both. This condition is not only detrimental to the company but also to the workforce. They have lost their jobs, which impacts the family economy. Finally, many workers of productive age (20-55 years old) began to engage in entrepreneurial activities, from selling products to offering services. This activity is carried out to fulfill their needs and improve their economy,” he explained.

The activity carried out in December 2021 is a mandatory lecturer scheme titled “Optimization of the Frozen Meatball Online Culinary Business in Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

“Current service partners can adapt but need science and technology assistance in business development. This is what makes partners very promising for partnership service. In their activities, these entrepreneurs face several obstacles, namely optimization in production and marketing. In terms of production, the methods used by partners are still far from optimal, making product competitiveness relatively low in the market, “said Beby Kendida.

In addition, he also mentioned constraints from the marketing aspect where marketing activities are relatively not optimal due to a lack of creativity. This service activity is expected to increase partner production and improve partners’ quality and marketing activities. Business people must be observant of market opportunities and what the community likes. The culinary business is one of the businesses that is in great demand, both by business actors and consumers. With the help of social media, transportation platforms, and online couriers, businesses can sell in the market and attract consumers.

One of the culinary favorites of the Indonesian people is meatballs, be it frozen meatballs that must be reprocessed or meatballs that are ready for direct consumption, which, of course, can be an opportunity for business actors. Currently, the community service activity program with the compulsory lecturer scheme has meatball-selling partners with both sales methods. Both methods of selling meatballs have their strengths and weaknesses. Selling without a location is certainly more cost-effective. Still, the sales process is more limited because only certain people know about it, and having a permanent selling place makes it easier for consumers to get meatballs. The downsides are the high cost and limited product marketing process.

Until now, partners have only sold their products around their residential locations. Sometimes, they are unable to meet consumer demand due to the limited amount of production, which is due to very simple production equipment. The production equipment used is simple household equipment with limited capacity. This condition causes them to limit their daily production because if they want to produce on a large scale, they have to cook the ingredients repeatedly, which will certainly take a lot of time.

The results of the visit to the partner’s location indicated that the partner’s production process was still lacking a hygienic production process. Therefore, the quality of the service partners’ products is relatively low and cannot last long. The product is formed directly by hand, indicating it is less clean.

Partners are also only able to market their products in limited locations because of a wider market; they have not been able to, while partners who sell meatballs permanently do not yet have a method to sell frozen products to be marketed further. This is due to unattractive product packaging and a lack of knowledge and skills in selling products. In running their business, partners face the problem of how to market their products so that they are known to many people, whereas so far, partners have only relied on word-of-mouth marketing and recommendations from friends.

“This is the background for us to carry out this service, with the main objective of increasing community income,” said Beby.

In that activity, the team provided training on how to carry out a suitable production process and advised partners to diversify their products, such as making new variants of meatballs. The team also suggested selling meatballs and complements, such as gravy and chili, separately so that consumers can easily consume them. Partners are also guided to maintain product stocks on an ongoing basis.

“The team also assists in terms of the right marketing process. Especially for MSMEs, the right marketing process is digital marketing, which utilizes existing social media. In addition, they are also trained in making calculations for the cost of goods sold and calculating break event points,” he said.

The community service program seeks to optimally develop partner production and expand product marketing by improving packaging and marketing products on social media. This is done to increase the potential and income of partners. With the improvement of the production process, it is expected that partners will be able to absorb more labor around the partner location.

Community service aims to empower the community by optimizing the potential of the partners and building the spirit of Pancasila. The training is expected to be able to open partners’ insights on how good production is by considering how much production should be done and how much stock the partners should have when approaching religious holidays. With a solution in the production field in the form of providing equipment, the output target to be achieved is an increase in daily production.
Service activities in the field of marketing are focused on marketing partner products more widely. Good packaging training is expected to improve the quality of existing packaging, increasing people’s desire to buy products and enter new and better markets. Social media training is expected to open partners’ insights into using social media to market their products more broadly. Partners are directed to have social media accounts to market their products.

Activities that have been carried out to solve partner problems based on the stages of implementation, both from the production and marketing fields, include production process training, where at this stage, partners are given knowledge of how the production process should be carried out, especially in terms of cleanliness and hygiene of food production. In addition, there is also education and socialization on making ready-to-sell frozen processed foods and providing equipment assistance to support the increase in meatball production. Selling skills training was provided to provide input related to product promotion and social media creation for partners.

The approach method is to discuss with partners what problems exist in product production and marketing. The next step is to provide the equipment partners needed to support the production and marketing process. Providing the equipment needed by partners is expected to improve the production process and also shorten production time.

The activity, which started on October 25, 2021, will be evaluated two months after the implementation of the service activity, which includes all aspects of education and utilization of assistance. This community service is expected to increase the production of frozen meatballs optimally to increase the income of business actors. In addition, the team also teaches about making financial reports, calculating the cost of goods sold, and calculating break-event points. The community service team recommends using social media such as Facebook to market their products and other social media such as Instagram and TikTok or marketplace applications such as Shopee and Lazada. (RJ)