A researcher at IPB University has developed a method to process sacha inchi seeds into cosmetic ingredients, and the work now appears on Indonesia's 117 Innovations 2025 list. The list, compiled annually, selects just over one hundred innovations from across the country's research institutions, and inclusion places the project before national industry partners and policymakers.

For formulators, the significance is straightforward. Sacha inchi — Plukenetia volubilis, a seed crop native to the Amazon and now cultivated in tropical Asia — carries a fatty-acid profile heavy in omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid, omega-6 linoleic acid and tocopherols. That composition suits emollient oils, serum bases and barrier-repair formulations. IPB's contribution is the processing route: converting the seeds into workable cosmetic ingredients rather than leaving the crop as a raw agricultural export.

What does inclusion on the list mean?

The 117 Innovations 2025 list functions as a national showcase. It selects research from Indonesian universities and institutes, and inclusion signals that a technology has moved past the laboratory stage toward commercial readiness. For IPB's sacha inchi work, that means:

• National visibility among cosmetics manufacturers and ingredient buyers
• A route to partnerships with formulators seeking plant-based, traceable supply
• Support for Indonesia's push to add value to its own agricultural feedstocks

The mechanism matters for procurement teams. When a public university licenses or scales such a process, buyers gain a domestic supplier with documented provenance, which shortens the audit trail compared with imported oils.

Why sacha inchi fits cosmetic development

Sacha inchi seed oil already circulates in the global INCI system as Plukenetia Volubilis Seed Oil, so formulators face no new-name registration burden. The oil's unsaturated fatty acids support claims around skin conditioning and barrier support, while its tocopherol content contributes oxidative stability relative to other plant oils — though formulators still need antioxidant systems in finished products.

IPB's processing work addresses the step between harvest and INCI-listed ingredient: extraction, refining and standardisation at a quality cosmetic manufacturers can specify in a purchase order. That is the gap that often blocks novel botanicals from reaching production scale.

What comes next?

The development to watch is commercialisation: which Indonesian manufacturer licenses the process, at what scale, and whether the resulting ingredient enters supplier catalogues with a standardised specification sheet. Until those data points appear, the 117 Innovations 2025 listing marks the project as one step from laboratory to ingredient shelf.