January 3, 2026 | 04:44 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia's National Nutrition Body (BGN) ensures the readiness of the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program, which will start targeting more than 55 million beneficiaries next week. The head of BGN, Dadan Hindayana, stated that production kitchens will be much better prepared for the distribution of nutrition services this year.
"The majority of nutrition fulfillment service units or SPPGs (kitchen) have experience, and the involved parties have also been continuously improving their capacity. This year, the service will be more optimal. Supervision is also becoming more intense. The quality will be much better," said Dadan in a short message to Tempo on Saturday, January 3, 2026.
BGN is scheduled to operate 19,188 Nutrition Fulfillment Service Units (SPPGs/kitchens) starting on January 8, 2026. With this number, the government aims to provide services to approximately 55.1 million beneficiaries in various regions of Indonesia from the first day of implementation this year.
This coverage is considered a sharp increase compared to the initial stage of MBG implementation in January 2025. At that time, the program was only implemented in 190 SPPGs with around 570,000 beneficiaries. Dadan considered that the initial phase was deliberately focused on building the system and ensuring operational readiness.
According to Dadan, this readiness allows MBG to begin 2026 with extensive beneficiary coverage. In addition to expanding the reach, BGN also claims to improve service quality through strengthened supervision and operational standards of MBG kitchens.
Dadan said that BGN emphasizes not only nutritional fulfillment interventions, but also improving SPPG service quality and strengthening nutritional education for the public. This step aims to help the public better understand how to choose healthy, nutritious meals.
Dadan stated that this approach is part of the government's long-term strategy to build a healthy consumption pattern from an early age, in line with the target of expanding MBG beneficiaries to 82.9 million people in the next phase.
Dinda Sabrina contributed to this article
Read: Indonesia Aims to Reach 55 Million Free Nutritious Meal Beneficiaries Next Week
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