June 5, 2026 | 10:37 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The newly appointed Head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), Nanik S. Deyang, has revealed four key measures to improve the free nutritious meal (MBG) program. These include budget efficiency, reorganization of MBG facilities, and the expansion of services to frontier, outermost, and disadvantaged (3T) regions.During her first press conference as the new BGN leader on Thursday, June 4, 2026, at the BGN office in Jakarta, Nanik said recent internal consolidation has resulted in four key prioritized agendas. "The main thing is we are moving towards budget efficiency," she said. The agency budget, Nanik said, currently stands at around Rp26.8 trillion with budget cuts, thus future policies will focus on improving the program's effectiveness without culling the target beneficiaries.Here are the four key measures BGN will implement going forward, according to Nanik:1. Refocusing the free nutritious meal beneficiariesThe first measure to ensure the program will remain effective is ensuring the right people enjoy the free meals. Nanik signaled that BGN will stop pursuing mere quantity of beneficiaries, but will focus on improving the quality.According to Nanik, the government will pay greater attention to groups deemed most in need of nutritional interventions, namely pregnant women, lactating mothers, toddlers, and elementary school children.She mentioned that nutritionists and pediatricians involved with BGN have suggested focusing interventions on the first thousand days of life up to around nine years old. "The best nutritional intervention is from the first month of pregnancy to around nine years old, or up to elementary school. So, that's what we're aiming for," she explained.2. Moratorium on new MBG kitchensThe pause on new public kitchens is aimed at reorganizing the distribution of facilities, which is currently deemed uneven. According to Nanik, MBG kitchens are concentrated in urban areas, while 3T regions still have minimal services."We will first sort this out. For example, in one district, six facilities are sufficient," she said, adding that BGN will reassess the ideal number of kitchens in each region before reopening new facility registrations.3. Improvements on existing MBG kitchensBGN will make sweeping evaluations on free nutritious meal kitchens to ensure food safety standards, food quality, and human resource capacity.BGN will also provide training for kitchen managers. Kitchens failing to meet the standards may face temporary operational suspension. 4. Expand free meals to 3T regionsThe last key measure listed by Nanik is expanding free meal distributions to 3T regions through a more flexible scheme that is less reliant on the state budget.According to Nanik, BGN is currently exploring various alternative funding sources such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, grants, and utilizing existing kitchen facilities in the regions.Nanik believes that opening more facilities may not be the most efficient option in 3T regions due to the relatively small number of beneficiaries in some areas. "The key is not always to build new facilities," she explained.Read: BGN Says It No Longer Prioritizes 82 Million Free Meal RecipientsClick here to get the latest news updates from Tempo on Google News
