Indonesia: Over 57,000 Poisoned Under Free Meals Programme, Kitchens to Be Monitored
Sudaryono, head of Indonesia's National Nutrition Agency, said on October 29 that food safety, above all mass food poisoning, is the biggest problem facing the government's free nutritious meals programme. Government data show more than 57,000 recipients had been poisoned as of September.
The poisoning rate stands at 3.6 cases per million servings, down from earlier levels but still above Japan's 0.8 and the United States' 0.1, Sudaryono said. The agency will now monitor nearly 27,000 programme kitchens by CCTV, and from next month all kitchens must buy seven staple commodities, including rice, eggs, beef and chicken, through the agency's new market platform.
The programme has also opened 1,460 kitchens in remote and high-stunting areas. Its 2026 budget, however, has been cut by 44 trillion rupiah from 268 trillion rupiah.
The free meals programme, a flagship pledge of President Prabowo Subianto, launched in January 2025 to provide free meals to schoolchildren and pregnant women. Recurring mass poisoning incidents have kept the programme under scrutiny.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 照片：印度尼西亚流动图书馆（资料图），Chaichaio 摄，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 4.0 授权 / Photo of a mobile library in Indonesia by Chaichaio, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
