Free Meals, Wasted Food: Why Indonesia’s Free Meals Targeting Problem Deserves More Attention

In early August 2026, the National Nutrition Agency (Badan Gizi Nasional, BGN) confirmed something long suspected but rarely said aloud: hundreds of private schools, many of which are elite institutions in Jakarta and other parts of Java, told the government they did not need the free nutritious meals (Makan Bergizi Gratis, MBG) programme. The former BGN chief had indicated that schools were free to opt out; her successor has said that his agency would not force these schools to keep receiving meals. This finding would feed into a broader “refocusing” exercise that could eventually remove as many as eight million recipients from receiving MBG.

This episode may look like an administrative footnote but goes to the heart of a problem that has quietly dogged the programme since its inception: some of those who need the meals the most are not receiving them, while some beneficiaries do not need the meals.

Much of the debate over the programme has revolved around a key question: Should the programme be treated as a universal right, available to every Indonesian child and expectant mother regardless of family income, or should it function more like targeted social assistance, channelled only to those who need it most? President Prabowo Subianto has often framed school meals as something every child deserves, for nutrition and dignity. Critics argue that with Indonesia’s limited resources, a universal design risks spreading state support too thinly.

Findings from Indikator Politik’s nationally representative survey in mid-July 2026, with 3,700 respondents (predating the BGN’s recent announcement on ‘refocusing’), help to explain why so many elite schools, with high fee-paying students, are comfortable turning these free meals down. A striking amount of MBG food never gets eaten.

The MBG programme was launched in January 2025. By mid-July 2026, some 58.2 per cent of households surveyed reported they had a child receiving free meals, a sharp rise from 13.7 per cent in a March 2025 survey of 1,220 respondents (with the same nationally representative, face-to-face methodology as the July 2026 one). Growth in the policy’s implementation has been uneven: Banten, among Indonesia’s seven highest-ranking provinces on the human development index, had the highest share of households reporting that their child received MBG (80 per cent), followed closely by other provinces in Java. In eastern Indonesia, however, in provinces such as Maluku and Papua, only around 22 per cent of parents said their child had received the meals.

This finding suggests that the distribution of MBG meals may not correspond to actual need on the ground. One possible explanation can be found in the MBG’s linkage with commercial incentives: meal providers will find operating kitchens in remote areas more costly, thus less profitable. If there is no government insistence on reaching and oversight of meals provided in remote locations, operators will default to where the logistics are easier and margins are higher.

This gives rise to questions about fairness and inefficient targeting, as the neediest areas of Indonesia may end up receiving fewer MBG meals.

This uneven rollout helps to explain the immense food wastage: the July 2026 survey shows that among households with school-age children receiving MBG meals, 41.7 per cent said their child “often” or “very often” did not eat the food or threw it away. Only 26.8 per cent said their child never wasted the food. The income gradient is striking: among households earning Rp12 million (USD 677) or more per month, only 8 per cent reported that their child never wasted the food, compared with 33 per cent among households earning Rp1 million (USD 56) or less. While some lower-income households also reported that their children did not eat the meals (34.8 per cent), the magnitude of waste is greater among higher-income households, with 48 per cent reporting that their children often or very often did not eat or threw away the food. Where MBG is most heavily concentrated, such as the Jakarta metropolitan region, Banten, Central Java, Yogyakarta and East Java, the share of respondents reporting frequent waste climbed to 50 per cent. This raises questions about whether aiming for universal provision even makes sense.

However, the mismatch in MBG provision and recipients’ needs may be insufficient to explain food waste at such scale. Food quality is another factor which is equally plausible: children from lower-income households, supposedly the main targets of the programme, may refuse to consume a meal served cold or in unacceptable condition. This must be read against the numerous mass food poisoning cases and allegations of certain individuals’ corruption. Unscrupulous kitchen operators might reduce their ingredient budgets or trim portions to increase their margins.

The mismatch is clearer when respondents were asked whether their household needed MBG: only 36.7 per cent said they needed or very much needed assistance, but around 61.8 per cent nationally said they did not quite need or did not need MBG at all. This latter figure rises to 75 per cent in Jakarta, 68.3 per cent in Central Java and Yogyakarta, and 65 per cent in East Java. Thus, the policy’s targeting gap is stark, when this data is seen against responses about receipt of the meals: about 31 per cent of households which need MBG reported never having received the meals, while 52.7 per cent of those who do not need them are receiving meals anyway.

What more, those who need MBG but are not receiving them tend to be more socio-economically vulnerable: they tend to be less educated, lower income, and live in rural areas and outside Java. Those who receive MBG despite not needing the meals tend to be better educated, higher income, and concentrated in urban Java, precisely the criticism levelled at universal programmes.

Policy Implications

These findings confirm the BGN’s targeting mismatch. The wave of elite private schools opting out of receiving MBG is best read as an early self-correction, but is not a permanent policy solution. The appointment of a new BGN head is a timely opportunity to turn this ad hoc opt-out into a systematic fix: rather than wait for elite schools to withdraw, however, the BGN could use existing socioeconomic data to proactively identify where MBG coverage is excessive or lacking. Strengthening the programme’s targeting, redirecting kitchen distribution towards higher need, and building efficient feedback loops that flag uneaten or wasted food would increase efficiency and fairness. Without such data-informed adjustments, Indonesia risks running one of the world’s biggest school meal programmes while leaving its most food-insecure children and households hungry.

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