January 8, 2026 | 02:57 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Food poisoning and other problems within the free nutritious meal program implementation are beyond human control, said the deputy head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) .Nanik Sudaryati Deyang. She admitted that there's no guarantee for "zero" incidents in the program.
"Only Allah guarantees that," Nanik said in a press conference for the 1 Year of Free Nutritious Meal Program (MBG) and the Inaugural Operation of the MBG Program in 2026.
Nevertheless, Nanik said the agency will exhaust its efforts to minimize such problems, especially food poisoning cases.
The BGN officer claimed that food poisoning cases since August and September have significantly decreased. "As we can see, the numbers are dropping as we go," she said.
She attributed the decrease partly to stricter requirements for the hygiene and sanitation eligibility certificate (SLHS). "SLHS is mandatory," she said.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian Education Monitoring Network (JPPI) reported that as of December 23, 2025, more than 20,000 people have been suffering from free meal-related poisoning.
"As of today, there are already 20,012 data in JPPI. Those are the ones reported to us. There are more who did not file a report," said the National Coordinator of JPPI, Ubaid Matraji, on December 23.
Ubaid was bewildered as there had been no improvements made in free nutritious meal governance, nor the good faith from the government to suspend the program, as thousands have fallen ill from consuming the state-sanctioned free lunches. "Our team found two suspected deaths due to MBG. These are the results of our monitoring team in Kuningan and Cihampelas," Ubaid said.
Read: Indonesia's Health Ministry Has No Data Yet on Free Meals' Impact on Stunting
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