August 29, 2025 | 07:21 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Minister of Trade Budi Santoso said the government could halt the import of food trays for the free nutritious meal program if proven containing pork oil. "If it is proven to contain [pork], we will stop the supplier, Budi told reporters at the Jakarta International Convention Center on Friday, August 29, 2025.
Budi made this statement in response to laboratory tests conducted by the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) on food tray samples suspected to contain pork oil.
Budi mentioned that the ministry is currently awaiting the results of the test conducted by BPOM. "We are still awaiting inspections, one of them [is] from BPOM, whether it's true or not," he said.
He also urged that the food trays must obtain the Indonesian National Standard (SNI) certificate. This regulation, he said, applies to both local and imported food tray products. The reason is that SNI is one of the guarantees for consumer safety. "One way is to make SNI mandatory," Budi said.
Previously, there was a report circulating on social media from the Indonesia Business Post which conducted an investigation in the Chaoshan region, eastern part of Guangdong Province, China, suspected to be the importer of the nutritious meal tray for the MBG program in Indonesia. In the report, the Indonesia Business Post team reported the discovery of 30-40 factories producing the nutritious meal for the global market, including one suspected for the MBG Program in Indonesia.
The report claims the discovery of alleged falsification of the "Made in Indonesia" label and the SNI logo on the meal tray, which was actually produced in China, the use of the 201 type of meal tray which is suspected to contain high manganese (a whitish-gray metal) and unsuitable for acidic foods. Additionally, there are indications of the use of pork oil or lard in the produced meal tray.
However, the National Standardization Agency (BSN) previously stated that it has established Indonesian National Standard (SNI) 9369:2025 concerning stainless steel compartmentalized meal tray to support the MBG Program.
"We established this standard on June 18, 2025, through the Chief of BSN's Decision Number 182/KEP/BSN/6/2025. This is a new standard developed by ourselves and compiled by the Downstream Metal Product Technical Committee 77-02," said BSN's Deputy of Standard Development Hendro Kusumo.
When contacted separately, Head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) Dadan Hindayana stated that they are still investigating information regarding the alleged pork content found in the free nutritious meal trays. "We are still studying it," Dadan said in a written message on Wednesday, August 27, 2025. He mentioned that BGN was never involved in the procurement of the MBG food trays.
Dinda Shabrina and Dian Rahma Fika contributed to the writing of this article.
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