Edible bird’s nest ‘factories’ boom in Borneo
● Made from the solidified saliva of white-nest swiftlets, the edible bird’s nest has been a part of Chinese cookery for 1,200 years. Soaked in boiling water to make a hearty gelatinous soup with broth or sugar, the flavourless ingredient is prized by connoisseurs for its proclaimed health benefits.
“The elixir is reputed to possess medicinal properties that nourish and vitalise the organ systems of the body, help increase energy and metabolism, dissolve phlegm, improve the voice, relieve gastric problems, aid kidney function, enhance the complexion, alleviate asthma, suppress cough, cure tuberculosis, strengthen the immune system and improve concentration,” wrote Craig Thorburn, an environmental scientist from Australia in a research paper, “The Edible Bird’s Nest Boom in Indonesia and Southeast Asia”.
Bird’s nest soup is also considered an aphrodisiac by some, while others have declared it an infant superfood that helps babies grow tall and smart.
Nests were traditionally sourced from dark, damp caves in tropical regions of Southeast Asia by daredevil climbers who balanced on flimsy bamboo ladders and scaffolding up to 60 metres high. The risk was great but so were the rewards, with each cup-shaped nest selling for the equivalent of hundreds of dollars in today’s money.
The sky-high prices made bird’s nests one of the world’s most valuable animal products and earned it the moniker, “the Caviar of the East”.
But in the years following World War II, when demand from Chinese consumers soared, swiftlets couldn’t compete with harvesters, and between 1957 and 1997 their populations plummeted as much as 88%.
“Harvesters would often try and collect as many nests as they could, regardless of whether they were fully formed, and they would just take them repeatedly,” said Creighton Connolly, a geography lecturer at the University of Lincoln.
To meet demand, entrepreneurs in the 1990s began growing swiftlet nests indoors in multistorey buildings constructed of sand, chalk and cement to replicate the facade of caves with small openings for swiftlets to enter.
Purpose-built factories have popped up like mushrooms in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and, most recently, in Cambodia, though the vast majority are found in Indonesia. The country exported 1,200 tonnes of edible bird’s nests last year, according to the Indonesian Central Statistics Agency.
Java was originally the hub of production but cheaper land prices and more robust white-nest swiftlet populations have resulted in West Kalimantan province, on the Indonesian section of Borneo Island, emerging as the new global centre of nest factories.
Siku, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, operates one such factory in Sanggua, a small inland city in West Kalimantan. He built it on his rooftop in 2017 — a single-storey edifice with soaring ceilings and wooden beams where swiftlets like to build their nests. The birds are neither bred nor captured. Rather, they are attracted by high-frequency bird calls emitted by dozens of small speakers on the walls and beams.
“Lots of my neighbours built birdhouses and made money so I wanted to do the same,” Siku said. “It took me three months to build and cost US$7,000.
“In the first year, the building attracted relatively few birds. But in the second year many more came. They enter the house at about 4pm and stay all night. In the morning the birds go out to find food, so I don’t need to feed them.”
Siku produces about a kilogramme of nests per month, earning 10 million rupiah (nearly $690) — more than four times the average monthly wage of $170 in Indonesia. “It’s been very profitable,” he said. “I recouped the cost of my investment very quickly.”
Siku sells most of what he produces to Tommy Chen, a 26-year-old second-generation trader who grew up eating bird’s nest porridge at home on Batam Island.
“It’s a very special dish,” he said. “We cook it with sugar and pandan leaves and then put it in the refrigerator to make a jelly. It tastes a little sweet.”
Every month Chen buys about 300kg of nests in West Kalimantan. “It’s not an easy business because many people are now trying to buy nests in West Kalimantan,” he said. “In [the capital city] Pontianak it costs about $850 for one kilogramme, though if I go to villages, I pay 10% to 20% less.”
From Pontianak, Chen airfreights the valuable cargo to Jakarta, where his uncle owns a nest processing plant. There, excrement, bird food and other impurities are painstakingly removed by hand.
“Some people clean it with chemicals but this is not good for human consumption,” Chen said, adding that the cleaner and whiter the product, the higher its value. “After cleaning we send it to China and sell it to wholesalers or directly to restaurants. There are four different grades, A, B, C and D. The prices vary from $1,400 to $2,100 per kilogramme.
Chen says his family cannot keep up with the demand. “It is becoming more and more popular over in China. During the Chinese New Year, people give mooncakes as presents. But the wealthy people always give bird’s nest from Indonesia, because it’s considered the best. In restaurants, bird’s nest soup sells for around 200 yuan — $30 per bowl.”
Surprisingly, there are no dedicated bird’s nest restaurants in West Kalimantan and only a handful in other parts of the county — principally in cities with large Chinese communities like Surabaya in Java and Medan in Sumatra.
Bird’s nest soup is also sold at highend Chinese restaurants in Indonesia, like Ah Yat Abalone in the Rimba Jimbaran luxury hotel on Bali. There, chef Lin Chee Keong prepares the dish in four ways: with chicken, pork, pumpkin or rock sugar.
“The secret to making good bird’s nest soup is the stock,” he said. “For the pork-flavoured soup, I use pork legs from China and spend five to eight hours cooking to create a rich, high-quality flavour.”