What’s going on with Indonesia?
On October 10th, 2024, the Indonesian government officially regulated our beloved plant Kratom. There’s been so much misinformation spreading and also legitimate information mixed in, so I’ve seen a lot of confusion as to what exactly is happening right now. So I wanted to take some time and type out a brief synopsis of what all is going on in Indonesia. The good, bad and unknown!
Indonesia has regulated kratom for a multitude of reasons. Whether you believe it to be an attempt of large suppliers to control the pipeline, or the government wanting power over the industry, there is only so much we can say for certain.
The main reasons given to us from the government are as follows, please remember that I’m simply outlining what the proposed purpose is on various topics and highlighting the potential benefits, I don’t take a particular side here :
-Public Health and Safety – Regulation will ensure that kratom is processed and exported in a safe and controlled manner. They are aiming to reduce the risks associated with adultered, unregulated products. Indonesia has long been the “wild west” of kratom. You could order from a guy who operates out of a compliant facility or a guy who works out of a nasty shack in the middle of the city, tarp drying his kratom leaves in the street. In terms of health and safety, the new regulations will be beneficial. All suppliers are now required to have their products lab tested before they’re approved for export. This is good to reduce the risk of contamination in the products coming over to us here in the USA, as well as other countries.
The lab testing requirement could be great for us vendors as well, because previously we always ran the risk of finding contamination on a full-size fully paid for batch, which we would suffer a significant loss from or a delay in replacement of the product. While the Indonesian lab standards aren’t quite what you see at Murray Brown, it’s not some dude in a shack with an HPLC machine. To an extent, it will provide a valuable filter for poor quality kratom before it has a chance to leave the country, thus keeping it out of circulation in our home market.
Economic Value – Indonesia is the worlds largest exporter of Palm Oil. However, regions like Borneo (Kalimantan) are absolutely crushing it in the kratom industry. There’s a tremendous amount of value in this product both in Indonesia and also here in the US. If you’re purchasing a consumable product that’s properly regulated, that makes it significantly less risky for the final consumer. The Indonesian government wants to support their farmers while also ensuring that the industry adheres to international trade standards, which will maintain their reputation as a reliable country of origin for these products.
Compliance with Internation Pressure – The US is one of a few countries who have raised numerous concerns about the safety and legality of kratom. By regulating it we see a clear expectations list , chain of command and systems that track everything from production to cleanliness of these operations. The implementation of regulations allows Indonesia to better align with what would be considered international “norms” as they are both addressing these concerns while simultaneously allowing kratom continued availability under more controlled circumstances.
Sustainability – If you were around during the FDA ban scare in 2018, you will remember that the Indonesians were absolutely demolishing the wild grown and even plantation grown trees. They were harvesting unethically and trying to get as much product sold over here to garner maximized profits in the event the plant was banned. Well, this overharvesting ended up killing a lot of harvest locations when they in fact did not end up banning the product. The regulations will also regulate the cultivation of Kratom in Indonesia, which should help prevent overharvesting and ensure the sustainability of the plant! There are many farmers who’s livelihoods depend on kratom, this will help to protect them. Now is it as black and white as I state? Absolutely not, but these are simply the goals of the regulations and new standards.
Quality Control – There will be quality standards within the new regulations, one of those being that the products must meet a standard of potency and safety before exporting. As mentioned above the regulation standards will help to ensure that kratom trade stays legal and safe.
Preventing Illegal Activities – Unregulated trade, smuggling, contamination with harmful substances, additives to make things more “potent”, are just a few issues that can arise with an unregulated product. By implementing stricter standards, the Indonesian government hopes to reduce the risk associated with unregulated products leaving their country and making their way into the mouths of people like you and me!
Why are vendors still not getting shipments?
As an Indonesian supplier, you need 3 main documents to be approved to export again :
– ET (registered exporter) ✅
– PE (Export Approval) 🔒
– LS (Surveyor Report) ✅
Green checks are the ones our guys have, many suppliers still don’t even have those two. Luckily our guys were ahead of the curve and already operating in compliant facilities. Every document listed above is a requirement to export again.
But we need PE which anyone who’s gotten the other two approvals so far is waiting on PE. Once they start approving those we’ll be green light to ship again. That being said , like I mentioned above a lot of small exporters and suppliers aren’t compliant and can’t even get the LS and ET, so this is WHY you will actually see a lot of smaller guys fall off and why you will see some sectors of small-batch operations affected and even large supplier operations to an extent.
Only so many suppliers will be allowed to export once the PE starts being approved for people.
There were 72 companies that applied for the ET and only 11 got accepted. We were one of them (thank god).
There are currently 50 cargo containers stuck in Jakarta because shipments aren’t moving still. There is a healthy amount of pressure on the Indonesian government right now so we think that the final approvals will be a little bit easier.
What do you think about all of this?
I personally think there’s both good and evil forces at play here. One thing that’s extremely obvious is the fact that the big and powerful suppliers of Indonesia and the US market alike want to control the pipeline as much as possible. They are squashing out the small guys with ridiculous regulatory requirements that got slapped in our faces with little notice. There are a LOT of hoops to jump through. You have to operate in a fully compliant (GMPa equivalent) facility among 19 other things in order to be considered for full approval to export. The implementation has been an absolute disaster. People are running out of stock, suppliers need to feed their families too, it’s a shit show. But it will smooth out!
With the requirements on contaminant testing now, suppliers who previously brought in leaves from various regions for circulation on their menu will be more careful as they will not want to risk losing their big shipment. There’s a lot of small farmers who deliver small batches of leaves (talking 100-200KG / 50KG raw powder equivalent) and others who deliver tons+ and this is what typically comprises a “suppliers menu”. Hell, half of “jongkong” leaf doesn’t even come from Jongkong. Suppliers travel the various regions and find what they deem to be acceptable harvests, add them to their repertoire, and sell them off to vendors. If a farmer is running a risky shack operation, a reputable supplier is less likely to touch them now. This is a benefit in the sense that the regulation of contaminants is much stricter now, however there are some small farmers who will inevitably lose their jobs. You will likely see a decline in the availability of true small batch kratom because of this. But it will still exist!
What will also happen is these smaller guys will just work for and supply the guys who have the compliant operations, there will be workarounds. But everything has to pass lab testing before being exported now so not every supplier is just going to let some Joe Schmoe farmer sell him leaves, they won’t want to risk failing for their main shipments. I think that there will still be amazing kratom available year round, but the landscape is certainly changing.
I think it was poorly implemented and there’s some dark forces trying to pull the strings here, but we will come to a middle ground here very soon and see our normal flow of kratom again. As for others, I cannot speak on anyone else’s pipeline. We have worked tirelessly and diligently to adhere to these regulations and have honestly straight worked our ass off to make sure we can keep things as normal as possible. Some others will definitely be affected, to what extent, only they know.
Is Crushed Leaf really banned?
Yes, they have halted exports of crushed leaf. This was largely in an attempt to reduce the amount of extract being produced, however there’s already loopholes in place for this. You probably won’t see a continuation of the same classic crushed leaf once everyone runs out, but you can get crushed from Thailand now and also there’s a 30 mesh grind alternative which comes pretty close.
Will DTE be affected and your suppliers?
We will not be affected outside of the shipping delays. DTE has always chosen to work with compliant operations from the start, we foresaw the potential for regulation and intentionally chose operations that operated in compliant facilities in order to protect ourselves in the future. So all of our suppliers, minus one will be affected. Once I have more updates and knowledge as to whether this (1) will be affected, I will announce the info on that. It’s not because he has a bad operation, he’s just a very SMALL operation and can’t afford to keep up with the regulations. So I’m working on figuring out how to lump him in with one of my other guys, nothing yall need to worry about!
Our kratom quality will not change, nor will our varieties. Some pipelines are trying to require gamma radiation for sterilization, but we are on a path where we prove cleanliness to an extend that it renders that unnecessary, so we will loophole around it and continue to bring the same kratom to our menu throughout the year! We will not use gamma unless we have to, which doesn’t seem likely at this point in time.
We are also heavily leaning into Thailand right now. We have access to a large variety of farmers and suppliers there. There is kratom ranging from 3-4 years on average however we also have access to 5-10 year trees that we harvest. Once the market grows for a few more years, they will be a quality source for consistent, unique, high quality kratom for many vendors and consumers alike. The market isn’t screwed, but it’s definitely delayed and things are not what they used to be. But we will be fine 😊
