BGN to Halt Free Nutritious Meals During School Holidays, Audit All Kitchens

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - The Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) programme will be halted during the school holidays. Concurrently, the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) will conduct an audit of all meal provider kitchens, known as Nutrition Fulfilment Service Units (SPPG).

Deputy Head of BGN, Agustina Arumsari, stated that the suspension is only for the duration of the school break. This period will be used to carry out a comprehensive restructuring.

With this effort, Agustina hopes the MBG programme will run better once students return to school after the holidays.

‘We are taking advantage of this school holiday momentum. We will stop everything, we will audit all kitchens, so that hopefully when the children return to school, conditions on the ground will be better and more orderly,’ Agustina said following a working meeting with Commission IX of the Indonesian House of Representatives, as quoted by Detikcom on Tuesday (16/6/2026).

She explained that the evaluation will assess kitchen quality, as well as improve internal governance, human resources, and the beneficiary data system.

Accurate data plays a crucial role in ensuring that every policy is made on a sound basis. Agustina affirmed that her agency will make policies based on clear data.

BGN has also coordinated with various ministries and institutions that hold beneficiary databases to refine the data before the programme resumes.

Meanwhile, BGN is sharpening the targeting of beneficiaries. This is expected to ensure nutritional interventions are precisely targeted, prioritise the groups most in need, and improve budget efficiency.

Agustina stressed that BGN’s current main focus is ensuring beneficiaries are on target. ‘We are talking about beneficiaries first, then the impact on kitchens and so on. We will reorganise,’ she concluded.