Cucu Mulyati got the fright of her life last month: a call saying that her 17-year-old son was seriously ill. He started feeling sick while eating the free lunch served on campus, which included fried chicken, rice, lettuce and strawberries.
Her son, Acep Sulaeman, was taken to a makeshift clinic half an hour from Saguling, his village in Indonesia.
“There were hundreds of sick children in there,” Ms. Cucu said. “I frantically went from stretcher to stretcher looking for him.”
He missed school for nearly two weeks, one of more than 1,300 children who fell ill in Cipongkor District in West Java Province in late September.
Food poisonings are surging in Indonesia. Thousands of children have gotten sick after eating free lunches at school, part of a national meal program instituted by President Prabowo Subianto in January. It is an enormous undertaking: Indonesia is the world’s fourth-most-populous country, spread out on an archipelago stretching across three time zones.
Experts have questioned whether the nation’s fragile economy can afford the program, which also offers meals to pregnant women. It is known as M.B.G., short for Makan Bergizi Gratis, or free nutritious meals.
It has been a boon for many people. Ms. Cucu said it had helped ease her family’s financial burden, and her other child, a daughter, has been eating free meals at her school for months without any issues.
But repeated incidents of contaminated food being served to children — hundreds fell ill this past week — have parents worried. There have been protests and calls for suspending and even terminating the program.
“The most detrimental issue is the lack of a regulatory framework,” said Diah Samiarsih, the founder of the Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives, a public health think tank. “There are no regulations, no playbook, no references — everything is up to interpretation.”
Mr. Prabowo has defended the ambitious program, which he campaigned on last year. He said it had improved nutrition for many children, created jobs and helped local farmers.
“We managed to feed 30 million recipients,” he said on Sept. 29. “There are shortcomings; there are food poisonings. We counted all the food that goes out — the deviation, the deficiency, or error is 0.00017 percent.”
Tan Shot Yen, a nutritionist, said: “That margin of error is acceptable in a shoe factory. But we are talking about human lives, not a product.”
The food that sickened the children in Cipongkor last month was found to be contaminated by salmonella and bacillus ceres bacteria.
“Acep said his body was burning up and he couldn’t breathe, even before he finished his meal,” said Ms. Cucu, who is now wary of her children eating the free lunch.
Children have found maggots in their meals in the provinces of East Java and South Sulawesi. In the Riau Islands, there have been reports of rice containing glass shards. One viral video shows kitchen staff in West Java washing food trays with soap and then rinsing them in dirty, stagnant water.
Ms. Diah’s think tank has documented more than 11,500 cases of food poisoning linked to the program.
The agency is targeting serving nearly 83 million beneficiaries and setting up 32,000 kitchens by the end of the year. It has a budget of 335 trillion rupiah, or $20 billion, for 2026.
Nanik S. Deyang, the deputy chief of the agency, said it was conducting unannounced inspections of kitchens, ensuring they are following protocols like using fresh ingredients and sterilizing equipment.
“We manage thousands of kitchens,” she said. “We were negligent in our supervision, we admit that — and for that, we sincerely apologize.”
Dr. Tan, the nutritionist, said M.B.G. should serve local food, not ultraprocessed foods like sausages and prepackaged cookies and cakes. The authorities say that the kitchens need to be creative so children eat the food and waste is reduced.
“One of the objectives of M.B.G. is to provide education to the public, to the children,” she said. “You can still cater to children’s taste while following the rules of nutrition.”
Public health experts and civil society groups said that the program’s goals were laudable. But the lack of planning, standards and a faulty rollout, they said, risks amplifying the very problems it is trying to address. They added that Indonesia’s armed forces and police, which are heavily involved in M.B.G., should not have a role in civilian programs. Some critics say the program has been expanded rapidly to benefit Mr. Prabowo’s political allies.
The government says it is only trying to help citizens.
“You cannot achieve public health without political commitment,” Ms. Diah said. “You need political commitment, and it’s good to have it. But do not abuse it.”
To many, expanding the program without fixing its shortcomings was a big concern. M.B.G.’s target recipients are up fivefold from the initial goal of 17 million people.
“Increasing the target while overwhelming the operational process will only continue to increase the number of victims,” Ms. Diah said. “Instead of generating good impact, it is poisoning kids.”
Muktita Suhartono reports on Thailand and Indonesia. She is based in Bangkok.
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