Jakarta – BGN Special Staff, Redy Hendra Gunawan, said that the government through the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) continues to accelerate the addition of Free Nutritious Meal Kitchens (MBG) as part of efforts to equalize nutritional services throughout Indonesia.
“The National Nutrition Agency is targeting that in July there will be 1,994 SPPGs operating. Next week, BGN will operate around 2,200 SPPGs,” said Redy.
The number of MBG kitchens or what are also known as Nutrition Fulfillment Service Units (SPPG) has previously reached 1,873 units spread across various regions. With this acceleration, BGN is expected to add 473 new kitchen units in the near future. This addition is believed to have a significant impact on expanding services and improving community welfare.
Redy said that the MBG program not only provides free nutritious food for the community, but is also a strategic solution to absorb labor and empower the local economy.
“This means that BGN will absorb almost 100,000 direct workers who work in nutrition fulfillment service units,” he said.
Increasing the number of MBG kitchens will also expand the scope of beneficiaries. In the near future, BGN is targeting the addition of 1.2 million new beneficiaries. With this addition, the total number of people served through this program will approach 7 million people.
“Next week, BGN will add 1.2 million beneficiaries so that the total that we will serve next week will be almost 7 million beneficiaries,” continued Redy.
Not only from a social perspective, the MBG program also has a strong economic impact. Until now, around 10,000 MSMEs, BUMDes, and cooperatives have been involved in the supply chain of raw materials to MBG kitchens.
The MBG program creates an inclusive and sustainable economic ecosystem at the local level. In this acceleration process, BGN also prioritizes verification of SPPG partners who will join the MBG kitchen operations.
The verification process is not only administrative, but also ensures the readiness of partner facilities, infrastructure, and human resources in meeting the standards for providing nutritious food effectively.
“BGN is also accelerating the verification of SPPG partners, which today are already queuing quite a lot, around 4,000 for us to verify and hopefully this verification acceleration will be implemented so that BGN’s target in August will be achieved quickly,” concluded Redy.
