Free meal for pregnant women, toddlers reaches 10.8 million recipients

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3 hours ago

Jakarta (ANTARA) – The Population and Family Development Ministry (BKKBN) said the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program for pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and toddlers, or the “3B” group, has reached 10.8 million recipients.

As of August 18, 2026, based on National Nutrition Agency (BGN) data, the figure comprised 964,000 pregnant women, 2.4 million breastfeeding mothers, and 7.4 million toddlers not attending early childhood education programs, Deputy for Community Mobilization and Participation Wahyuniati said in a media discussion here on Monday.

Wahyuniati added that 24,606 Nutrition Fulfillment Service Units (SPPG) or MBG kitchens across Indonesia are serving the MBG 3B program.

To ensure the food nutrition assistance reaches the right recipients, the ministry said it is optimizing the role of the Family Assistance Teams (TPK), which consist of 139,000 members.

“Internally, and also in cooperation with BGN, we have carried out several strengthening measures. So the strengthening that has been done is training or education, because the TPK has two tasks in MBG 3B, the first being distribution and the second being education,” she said.

She affirmed the government continues to strengthen TPK performance so members do not merely deliver food, but also have sufficient knowledge to educate 3B recipients.

“We have conducted special training for the TPK, that is number one. Number two is training MBG 3B facilitators for the provinces. This strengthening targets personnel at the provincial level so provinces can then go into the field to train those on the ground,” she explained.

Wahyuniati added that the ministry has also disseminated communication, information, and education (KIE) guidelines to field-level officers, including the TPK.

“There is also technical training on nutritious meal assistance and healthy food consumption education for family planning extension workers (PKB) in 2026,” she said.

Those trainings, Wahyuniati added, aim to reach the national target of 21 million beneficiaries, while simultaneously serving as an effort to reduce stunting rates and improve national nutritional quality.