BPOM Now Monitors Free Nutritious Food Program

The National Nutrition Agency (BGN) and the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance the Free Nutritious Food (MBG) program. The signing took place at the BPOM office in Johar Baru, Central Jakarta, on Thursday, January 23, 2025. With this agreement, BPOM will participate in the implementation of the free nutritious meals. During the event, BPOM Head Taruna Ikrar stated that this MoU serves as a legal foundation for the collaboration between the two agencies in the MBG program. "We will formalize this MoU, providing a legal basis for BPOM to work together," he added.

This MoU allows BPOM to fully support BGN in executing the MBG program. Taruna mentioned that this commitment has been in the works for a long time, even since he was part of the expert team for the Prabowo-Gibran National Winning Team. "We have recognized the urgent need for free nutritious food. Current data shows that 21.6 percent of our children are experiencing stunting," he said. Meanwhile, BGN Head Dadang Hindayana noted that the collaboration between BGN and BPOM has been ongoing informally for a long time. Many professional BPOM staff have also been assisting BGN to facilitate the free meal program.

This time, BPOM can be formally asked to collaborate because it has a good track record in hygiene assessment and mitigation. "So, BPOM's involvement is very important," added Dadang. There are 11 areas included in the memorandum of understanding between BPOM and BGN. These include creating guidelines for food safety risk mitigation, supporting nutrition service units, monitoring food safety in production facilities, testing food products, overseeing food safety in the supply chain, enhancing the skills of food handlers, improving food laboratory capacity, following up on nutritious food supervision, boosting human resource capacity and skills, empowering community participation through communication and information, and exchanging data and information.

Tag: BPOM Free Nutritious Food Program National Nutrition Agency