Free meals programme to reach Islamic boarding schools in Java from late October

JAKARTA — Indonesia's Free Nutritious Meals programme, known as MBG, will reach Islamic boarding schools, or pondok pesantren, on the island of Java starting in the fourth week of October 2026, according to Coordinating Minister for Food Zulkifli Hasan. He spoke at a press conference in Jakarta on Monday, 19 October, after a coordination meeting on the programme, Antara reported.

Zulkifli said the rollout on Java was expected to begin on 25 October. He said boarding schools could submit student data directly to the National Nutrition Agency, known as BGN, so that pupils could be registered as beneficiaries.

"There are no intermediaries, no brokers. Data goes directly from the boarding school to BGN," he said, according to Antara.

Zulkifli said distribution would be based on beneficiary data, so that the programme ran in an orderly way and reached the intended recipients. He also said the government was speeding up the activation of Nutrition Service Units, known as SPPG, in disadvantaged, frontier and outermost areas, referred to as 3T.

According to Zulkifli, 480 SPPG units were completed in the first phase in eastern Indonesia, including Papua, East Nusa Tenggara and Maluku. A second phase, which began on 14 October, has activated 980 new units in 3T areas in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Bali.

Beneficiary data is being compiled by name and address, drawing on records from the Education, Religious Affairs and Civil Registry agencies and the Health Ministry, which provides data on children under five. Zulkifli acknowledged that some eligible people had not yet received the service because their data had not been entered into the system. He said data updates were needed so that distribution could reach all targets.

No further details on the number of boarding schools or students in Java were given in the report. Antara's coverage does not say how many institutions will be included.

Background

The MBG programme is a national scheme that provides free meals to students and other beneficiaries. Antara linked the latest announcement to a related report on the second anniversary of the Prabowo administration, which said more than 57 million children had received MBG meals.