January 20, 2025
JAKARTA – Dozens of cases of foodborne illness have been recorded among participating schools in multiple regions just two weeks into the launch of President Prabowo Subiantio’s free nutritious meal program for students.
On Thursday, 40 pupils of SDN Dukuh 03 state elementary school in Sukoharjo regency, Central Java, fell ill after eating preprepared lunches from a local caterer provided as part of the program. Each lunch comprised white rice, fried breaded chicken, stir-fried carrots and tofu, cut dragon fruit and a carton of milk.
Some of the children started vomiting, which prompted the teachers to contact the caterer and the local Puskesmas (community health center), where the sick students were taken for treatment.
All affected students have since been discharged from the health center.
Health workers at the Puskesmas determined that the caterer from the 0726 Sukoharjo Military Command (Kodim) had not cooked the chicken properly.
“When a dish is undercooked, it usually has a distinct smell or texture. But the children did not realize it until they got sick after eating it,” Puskesmas Sukoharjo head Kunari Mahanani said on Thursday, as quoted by kompas.com.
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She said on Friday that the distribution of the free packaged meals had resumed.
Health workers from Puskesmas Sukoharjo also held a workshop on food hygiene at three elementary schools in the regency.
Food testing
Presidential Communications Office (PCO) head Hasan Nasbi confirmed the food poisoning incident in Sukoharjo in a statement on Friday, and said the caterer had recalled and replaced the contaminated meals.
Hasan also said all approved caterers involved in the program were required to keep samples of the food they had served for 48 hours.
“We keep the samples so we can trace the cause of any incidents, such as the one that happened in Sukoharjo,” he said, adding that the Sukoharjo Health Agency was checking food samples from the Kodim caterer.
“Such incidents will serve as an important point in the evaluation by the BGN [National Nutrition Agency] to tighten standard procedures at every step of preparation for the free meals program to ensure quality and hygiene,” Hasan said.
After a cabinet meeting on Friday, BGN head Dadan Hindayana appeared at a televised press briefing and said the Sukoharjo incident was an accident. He also appreciated local authorities who immediately recalled the meal.
Food hygiene and safety was a major concern of the free meals program, Dadan said. “That’s why this program can’t be done by anyone. We need someone who can react quick in mitigating [health] impacts.”
He also said President Prabowo Subianto had concurred that such an incident could happen at anytime and had expressed appreciation for the swift response from local authorities.
Repackaged leftovers
The Sukoharjo food poisoning incident followed another that occurred several days earlier in Nunukan, North Kalimantan.
At least 29 students of SDN 003 Nunukan Selatan state elementary school in the provincial capital were absent on Tuesday. School headmaster Hairuddin said the students’ parents had told teachers that their children felt sick and had developed diarrhea.
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Some teachers who had eaten the absent students’ meals on Tuesday had also complained of stomachache and diarrhea, tribunnews.com reported.
SDN 003 distributes prepackaged meals to 597 students in the morning and afternoon, and Hairuddin said the affected students had eaten the afternoon meal.
“The caterer told us that they had packed leftovers from the soy sauce chicken, a dish that was in the morning meal, in the packaged meals for the afternoon,” he said, as quoted by tribunnews.com.
Prabowo’s flagship program derives from his campaign promise to provide free, nutritious meals to millions of schoolchildren and pregnant women to help improve their health and quality of life, and eventually boost economic growth.
The program’s phase one rollout launched on Jan. 6, with a target to distribute packaged meals from 190 approved small-scale caterers to around 500,000 students. The government aims to gradually increase the number of caterers to 937 and recipients to 3 million by March.
The government allocated Rp 71 trillion (US$4.3 billion) for the first phase of the program. The funding allocation is expected to expand to Rp 420 trillion by the end of this year to achieve its goal of feeding 82 million children and pregnant women on a budget of Rp 10,000 per meal.
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Authorities said the first day of the program went smoothly, but some students complained about the taste of some dishes on the second day.
Experts also found that the meals distributed in several regions failed to meet nutritional standards, and urged the government to evaluate the program’s first phase to prevent issues in the wider rollout.
Despite the complaints, Dadan said on Friday after the cabinet meeting that the President wanted to accelerate the free meals rollout to reach 82 million children and pregnant women by the end of 2025.