Indonesia suspends free school lunches after more than 300 food poisoning cases

More than 300 students and teachers fell ill due to food poisoning after consuming meals from President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship initiative of the free lunch program.

This marks the country’s largest poisoning incident since this program was launched.

The incident occurred at Sragen, Central Java, where 365 people (mostly students) reported nausea, diarrhoea, and stomach pain.

The officials reported that the suspected meals that caused food poisoning were turmeric rice, scrambled eggs, fried tempeh, cucumber salad, and milk. Any of these items caused food poisoning.  

The program has been suspended until lab tests confirm the primary source of food poisoning. Moreover, the government announced that it would compensate the medical bills of all victims.

Prabowo’s free meal program has a budget of $28 billion and it focuses on reducing childhood stunting. It aims to benefit 82.9 million beneficiaries of the country’s 280 million population.

In the first year, the estimated cost of the programme is around $4.39bn targeting 15 million beneficiaries.

However, the program faced heavy criticism due to safety failures and budgetary strains. The recent incident adds to the number of food poisoning cases linked to centrally prepared meals.

In addition to it, funding cuts to ministries have sparked protests with critics calling the initiative fiscally irresponsible.

Authorities are also examining the hygienic conditions at the kitchen facilities to confirm the source.