Over 1,700 people fall ill from food poisoning linked to Indonesia's free school meals program

More 1,700 people have contracted food poisoning in Indonesia over the past week after eating free school meals provided by the government as part of a new scheme.

At least 725 pupils and 25 teachers at a school in Lasem on the island of Java complained that they felt unwell on Thursday morning after consuming the free lunch on Wednesday.

"They had diarrhea, they were vomiting, and felt nauseous," said the school's principal. "There was a queue at the bathrooms because two of our toilets are under renovation."

Earlier this week, more than 600 students in Sidoarjo, East Java, were also taken to hospital after eating free lunch meals on Tuesday.

In two other cases on Wednesday, 49 people in the East Java city of Nganjuk and 237 in the West Sumatra region of Agam also fell ill.

One lawmaker, Charles Honoris, put the total number of food poisoning cases linked to the free school meals scheme as high as 50,000 since, citing health department data.

"This is a failure of the ⁠system," he said.

What has caused the food poisoning?

The mass outbreaks of food poisoning have been blamed on improper food storage and late delivery of pre-cooked meals.

According to the school principal in Lasem, a food taster found that some of the grilled chicken to be distributed was "slimy" and therefore put aside.

"The kitchen operator said the food was cooked at 3 a.m. and it ​was eaten at noon," she reported.

President Prabowo's free school meals scheme

The $12.94 -billion (€11.13-billion) program, launched in January 2025, is one of President Prabowo Subianto's signature policies, intended to improve nutrition for up to 80 million children as well as pregnant and breastfeeding women.

But the costly scheme has been dogged by allegations of corruption, ​leadership changes and spate of mass food poisoning outbreaks.

It was among the first budget items to be cut back as the Indonesian government moved to counter the economic impact of the war in the Middle East and hundreds of people took to the streets of the capital, Jakarta, last week to call for it to be scrapped entirely.

"This has become a national alarm," said Ubaid Matraji, a researcher at the Indonesian Education Monitoring Network.

"The government cannot continue to treat them as mere statistical figures. Behind every number there is a sick child, a panicked family, and the state's failure to guarantee safe food."

The head of Indonesia's National Nutrition Agency, ⁠which oversees the scheme, told a parliamentary hearing that the food poisoning cases would be ​handled "seriously."

Edited by: Zac Crellin