# Weekend Listen: Indonesia’s $15 Billion Free Lunch Experiment

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 31 May 2026, 18 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/9c0fc85d-ee43-466f-a1dd-b45b00f8b8e3/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

Indonesia’s free lunch program is a massive operation, feeding tens of millions of people every day across a vast archipelago. On this episode of the Big Take Asia podcast, host Rebecca Choong Wilkins talks with Bloomberg’s Rosalind Mathieson about the challenges facing President Prabowo’s flagship program and whether it can survive the strain. Read more: Handing Out $15 Billion of Free Meals Strains Indonesia's Budget Hosted by Rebecca Choong Wilkins; Produced by Naomi Ng; Reported by Rosalind Mathieson, Eko Listiyorini; Edited by Paddy Hirsch. Fact-checking by Eleanor Harrison-Dengate; Engineering by Alex Sugiura. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver; Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:13] Speaker 2: It's four AM and dozens of kitchen staff are cooking
[0:16] Speaker 2: up a storm in a coastal village in southern Indonesia.
[0:20] Speaker 1: There's some doing the cooking, chopping up vegetables, some are
[0:23] Speaker 1: doing the packing.
[0:24] Speaker 2: Roslin Madison is Bloomberg's chief Asia correspondent based in Singapore.
[0:29] Speaker 2: She and Bloomberg reporter Echo Listi Urini visited the remote
[0:32] Speaker 2: Village kitchen in West Timor in March. Their workers prepare
[0:36] Speaker 2: thousands of pat lunches that are delivered to school children,
[0:39] Speaker 2: pregnant women and new mothers almost every day.
[0:43] Speaker 1: They're pretty functional, I would say, I mean it's a
[0:46] Speaker 1: reusable metal tray that separated into compartments. You'll often get
[0:51] Speaker 1: a portion of rice, sometimes egg, chicken or tempe, a
[0:55] Speaker 1: small portion of soup, vegetables. Usually there's one piece of fruit.
[0:59] Speaker 1: We saw watermelon, dragon fruit.
[1:02] Speaker 2: The lunches are part of a vast state funded program
[1:05] Speaker 2: in Indonesia where free meals are delivered to more than
[1:08] Speaker 2: sixty million people.
[1:10] Speaker 1: It's a massive undertaking. Indonesia is the world's largest collection
[1:15] Speaker 1: of islands, and so you're talking about distributing free meals
[1:20] Speaker 1: across thousands of islands, many of them far away from
[1:24] Speaker 1: big cities like Jakata.
[1:26] Speaker 2: Providing free nutritious meals for children under eighteen and pregnant
[1:30] Speaker 2: women was a big part of Indonesian President Proboo Subianto's
[1:34] Speaker 2: election campaign. He launched the program in January twenty twenty five,
[1:39] Speaker 2: and this past year he's been ramping up the program
[1:42] Speaker 2: at a startling pace and cost.
[1:45] Speaker 1: It's now about fifteen billion dollars of allocation from the
[1:50] Speaker 1: budget this year, and when you think about the overall
[1:53] Speaker 1: national budget that's been over six percent and want to
[1:56] Speaker 1: power with things like the national healthcare budget.
[2:00] Speaker 2: Foreign investors have expressed concern about the program's ballooning price tag,
[2:06] Speaker 2: especially at a time when Indonesia's economy is already under
[2:09] Speaker 2: immense pressure from a top Indonesian official about commodity export
[2:13] Speaker 2: control plans. Than a rattal market.
[2:16] Speaker 3: For this open of Indonesia and stocks we just get
[2:19] Speaker 3: absolutely tossed out the window.
[2:22] Speaker 2: Despite investor concerns, Proboo has doubled down on the program,
[2:26] Speaker 2: saying it will help create jobs, boost consumption and economic growth.
[2:30] Speaker 2: But rosalind says there's little evidence to show that the
[2:33] Speaker 2: program so far is anywhere near the economic game changer
[2:37] Speaker 2: that Proboo promised it would be.
[2:39] Speaker 1: Parents that we spoke to weren't really saving any money
[2:43] Speaker 1: out of this program.
[2:44] Speaker 4: They said their kids often came home still hungry.
[2:47] Speaker 1: Investors are saying, is this really going to be a
[2:50] Speaker 1: massive multiplier for the economy and they have doubts about that.
[2:58] Speaker 2: This is the Big Take Asia from bloomber News. I'm
[3:01] Speaker 2: Rebecca Chunk Wilkins filling in for One Huh. Every week
[3:05] Speaker 2: we take you inside some of the world's biggest and
[3:07] Speaker 2: most powerful economies and the market's tycoons and businesses that
[3:11] Speaker 2: drive this ever shifting region. Today on the show, Indonesia's
[3:16] Speaker 2: Free Lunch program. What it takes to feed tens of
[3:19] Speaker 2: millions of people every day and have safety problems and
[3:22] Speaker 2: ballooning costs are worrying investors and could threaten the future
[3:26] Speaker 2: of the scheme. Ros you visited some of the schools
[3:36] Speaker 2: and community centers in Indonesia where these free meals were delivered.
[3:41] Speaker 2: How did the kids like their pat lunchers.
[3:45] Speaker 1: I think every child is on the planet doesn't like
[3:48] Speaker 1: green beans, because they were all pushing those around on
[3:51] Speaker 1: their plate every time. Sometimes there were swapping bits of
[3:54] Speaker 1: the meals with each other that they didn't like or
[3:56] Speaker 1: the ones they wanted.
[3:58] Speaker 4: But I would also say, particularly.
[3:59] Speaker 1: The real there was a sense from these keys that
[4:02] Speaker 1: they kind of appreciated the gesture.
[4:05] Speaker 2: When Indonesian President Proboa began laying the groundwork for his
[4:09] Speaker 2: free Meals initiative, it was aimed at addressing a growing
[4:13] Speaker 2: public health crisis. As of twenty twenty four, nearly one
[4:17] Speaker 2: in five Indonesian children were affected by stunting, a condition
[4:21] Speaker 2: link to long term malnutrition. Proboo has made fighting this
[4:26] Speaker 2: condition personal.
[4:27] Speaker 1: He's very much detached his personal brand to this, and
[4:32] Speaker 1: he was motivated by the desire, he says, to take
[4:35] Speaker 1: better care of the people of Indonesia and to lift
[4:39] Speaker 1: them up in a way to give them opportunities through
[4:42] Speaker 1: better nutrition. And you can see how important it is
[4:45] Speaker 1: to him. He's enlisting the military to help roll out
[4:48] Speaker 1: this program. He's a former military general. As we know,
[4:52] Speaker 1: he's a bit of a state interventionist at heart, a
[4:56] Speaker 1: bit of a socialist.
[4:57] Speaker 4: When it comes to economic policy.
[4:59] Speaker 1: So he sees a very strong role for the state
[5:02] Speaker 1: in economic policy in Indonesia, and that has kind of
[5:08] Speaker 1: cascaded through all his policies so far. Just last week,
[5:12] Speaker 1: Proboo announced that the government's going to take direct control
[5:17] Speaker 1: of exports as some commodities through a new state export body.
[5:22] Speaker 4: This is part, of course, the Probos pushed for the
[5:24] Speaker 4: state to play a larger part in the economy.
[5:27] Speaker 1: He's argued that more of the profits from natural resources
[5:31] Speaker 1: should stay home and be channeled into social programs and infrastructure,
[5:36] Speaker 1: and of course that includes his very very big free
[5:39] Speaker 1: meals program.
[5:40] Speaker 2: Probo says the program is supposed to do much more
[5:44] Speaker 2: than just improve nutrition. He says that it could transform
[5:48] Speaker 2: the economy to So it.
[5:50] Speaker 1: Is that idea again of leveraging off this program to
[5:53] Speaker 1: not just improve child nutrition, which is very important, and
[5:57] Speaker 1: their retention rates at school more it's turning up to school,
[6:01] Speaker 1: but also staying at school. But it is that multiplier
[6:04] Speaker 1: effect on the economy that he talks about.
[6:07] Speaker 2: Prabo talked about that multiplier effect at the World Economic
[6:11] Speaker 2: Forum earlier this year.
[6:13] Speaker 5: Our free meals strengthens our economy. More than sixty one
[6:19] Speaker 5: thousand micro, small and medium enterprises and copy this are
[6:26] Speaker 5: now a part of this supply chain. We are creating
[6:33] Speaker 5: more than six hundred thousand jobs just at the kitchens.
[6:39] Speaker 1: So create an ecosystem of jobs locally where these central
[6:44] Speaker 1: kitchens are located. Also potentially help consumption so that parents
[6:49] Speaker 1: aren't spending so much money feeding their kids, they have
[6:52] Speaker 1: perhaps a bit more money to invest elsewhere in the economy.
[6:56] Speaker 1: And essentially, can it just be a contributor to GD
[7:01] Speaker 1: and two rising prosperity in Indonesia.
[7:04] Speaker 4: So he's banking on this program to do an awful lot.
[7:08] Speaker 2: For now, at least Indonesians seem to be on board.
[7:11] Speaker 2: Opinion polls suggest the program has been fairly popular and
[7:14] Speaker 2: the government has moved quickly to scale it up. Now
[7:17] Speaker 2: there are more than twenty five thousand kitchens operating nationwide,
[7:22] Speaker 2: each serving up to three thousand meals a day. But
[7:25] Speaker 2: as Ros found, the reality of delivering food at that
[7:28] Speaker 2: scale and across an archipelago of more than seventeen thousand
[7:32] Speaker 2: islands can be messy.
[7:34] Speaker 1: In the rural area, it's rough going. You know, the
[7:36] Speaker 1: roads are often washed away, they're prone to flooding.
[7:40] Speaker 4: They're pothold already.
[7:42] Speaker 1: So the trucks have been navigate these roads to make
[7:44] Speaker 1: each stop, and they've got to try and make each
[7:47] Speaker 1: stop on time, and they say, every day, they're feeling
[7:49] Speaker 1: pressured to make sure that they do their deliveries on time.
[7:53] Speaker 1: Another logistical challenge that they face, particularly in the rural area,
[7:58] Speaker 1: is that there.
[7:59] Speaker 4: Aren't big far markets open every day.
[8:01] Speaker 1: They have to drive a couple of hours to another
[8:04] Speaker 1: bigger town to source produce, So that's another logistical challenge
[8:09] Speaker 1: because it's sort of four hour round trip to get
[8:11] Speaker 1: there and back.
[8:13] Speaker 2: Then there's the question of food safety. Across the country.
[8:16] Speaker 2: At least fifteen thousand children have fallen ill due to
[8:20] Speaker 2: food poisoning link to the program.
[8:22] Speaker 1: They were particularly early on quite widespread and documented cases
[8:26] Speaker 1: of food poisoning. There were some reports even of shards
[8:30] Speaker 1: of glass in some meals. There are still those occurring,
[8:34] Speaker 1: but they do seem to be tapering off. When we
[8:37] Speaker 1: spoke to the head of the National Nutrition Agency, he
[8:40] Speaker 1: was telling us very clearly they are penalizing kitchens for infringements,
[8:44] Speaker 1: so they might stop their payments for a couple of weeks.
[8:47] Speaker 1: In extreme cases, they will close those kitchens entirely.
[8:52] Speaker 2: Critics of the program point to food safety issues like these,
[8:56] Speaker 2: and they're beginning to ask whether the program can actually
[9:00] Speaker 2: the kind of economic payoff promised by the government. Rose
[9:04] Speaker 2: put that question to the head of Celios, a Jakarta
[9:06] Speaker 2: based think tank.
[9:07] Speaker 1: The head of the think tag, I asked him how
[9:10] Speaker 1: he would grate it.
[9:11] Speaker 4: He said, well, I give it an f for now.
[9:14] Speaker 1: And they've been critical in a bunch of ways about
[9:17] Speaker 1: this program, including again that idea of an economic multiplier,
[9:21] Speaker 1: and they don't see it.
[9:22] Speaker 4: In fact.
[9:23] Speaker 1: One thing they said is that anecdotally they have found
[9:26] Speaker 1: the evidence of an inflationary impact.
[9:29] Speaker 4: Of this program at a localized level, so parts.
[9:32] Speaker 1: Of Indonesia where there have been people saying, well, we're
[9:35] Speaker 1: seeing increases in chicken prices and egg prices because the
[9:39] Speaker 1: kitchens are hoovering up all these things.
[9:45] Speaker 2: After the break, we look at the cost of running
[9:47] Speaker 2: such an ambitious program and why Probo's enthusiasm for this
[9:51] Speaker 2: kind of social experiment is making investors nervous. Indonesia's free
[10:07] Speaker 2: meals program is expected to feed nearly eighty three million people,
[10:11] Speaker 2: or around a third of the population, by the end
[10:13] Speaker 2: of this year. To do that, the government has set
[10:16] Speaker 2: aside fifteen billion dollars, five times the amount it's spent
[10:20] Speaker 2: last year. That's according to the National Nutrition Agency. But
[10:24] Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Rosalin Madison says investors are worried about that growing
[10:28] Speaker 2: price tag.
[10:30] Speaker 4: It is a large amount of the budget.
[10:33] Speaker 1: They have looked to trim a bit of it, and
[10:35] Speaker 1: the government is looking at cost cutting measures as a
[10:37] Speaker 1: whole to try and save about.
[10:39] Speaker 4: Seven point one billion dollars.
[10:41] Speaker 1: That's again as they're under pressure from rising energy prices
[10:46] Speaker 1: and the impact of the war in the Middle East,
[10:49] Speaker 1: and that's putting a lot of questions over the legal
[10:51] Speaker 1: budget deficit cat, which has been set at three percent
[10:55] Speaker 1: for a long time, and that's been a cornerstone for
[10:57] Speaker 1: investors for many years, and.
[11:00] Speaker 4: They're looking at that closely and saying are you going.
[11:02] Speaker 1: To breach that budget cap and will the free meals
[11:05] Speaker 1: program be a factor in you doing that.
[11:09] Speaker 2: For more than two decades, Indonesia has lived with a
[11:12] Speaker 2: strict fiscal rule. Since two thousand and three, the government
[11:15] Speaker 2: has been legally required to keep its budget deficit below
[11:18] Speaker 2: three percent of GDP, a safeguard put in place after
[11:22] Speaker 2: the Asian financial crisis, but in March, a government official
[11:26] Speaker 2: suggested temporarily easing that limit to cope with higher oil
[11:29] Speaker 2: prices for markets.
[11:32] Speaker 1: Roz says that was a red flag both Medis and
[11:35] Speaker 1: Fitch cited it that three percent figure is a factor
[11:38] Speaker 1: when they lowered their rating outlooks on Indonesia this year.
[11:43] Speaker 1: So the rating houses are watching that three percent figure
[11:46] Speaker 1: very closely and saying the spending. A lot of this
[11:50] Speaker 1: is coming from these big ticket programs, including free meals.
[11:54] Speaker 4: It's coming at a time when.
[11:56] Speaker 1: Investors are also nervous about the broader investability in Indonesia.
[12:01] Speaker 2: And last week announce the government would take control or
[12:05] Speaker 2: direct control of exports of some of Indonesia's most important commodities.
[12:11] Speaker 1: Indonesia's obviously a massive exporter of commodities, and particularly this
[12:16] Speaker 1: is going to hit palm oil, coal, and ferrow alloys,
[12:20] Speaker 1: which could include some nickel products.
[12:23] Speaker 4: And it's a lot of money.
[12:25] Speaker 1: More than a fifth of the country's export revenue last
[12:28] Speaker 1: year came from commodities, so it's a very big player globally.
[12:32] Speaker 1: And this is making investors worried because they're saying, hang on,
[12:36] Speaker 1: no one knew this policy was coming. Everybody was taken
[12:39] Speaker 1: by surprise. And does this mean that Indonesia's drifting further
[12:43] Speaker 1: away from that mantra being market friendly? And also what
[12:48] Speaker 1: does it mean if you have greater state control over
[12:51] Speaker 1: the economy, does that leave it open to greater political
[12:55] Speaker 1: influence over state companies?
[12:57] Speaker 2: For example, even the bomb market, usually the calm's part
[13:02] Speaker 2: of Indonesia's markets, has started to show signs of strength.
[13:07] Speaker 2: Government boring costs have been creeping higher. Praboo has told
[13:11] Speaker 2: Bloomberg that fiscal discipline remains a priority and he's committed
[13:15] Speaker 2: to keeping the budget in check. Some critics say the
[13:19] Speaker 2: government needs to redesign the program, to scale it back
[13:23] Speaker 2: and learn how similar schemes have worked elsewhere.
[13:26] Speaker 1: Some of the people that we spoke to they want
[13:29] Speaker 1: it to be much more targeted. They say this idea
[13:31] Speaker 1: that it has to go across everywhere Indonesia, the one
[13:34] Speaker 1: approach everywhere, no matter the demographics of that area, the
[13:38] Speaker 1: socioeconomic status of that area. But put it in places
[13:42] Speaker 1: of demonstrated need, have it regionalized, and have much more
[13:48] Speaker 1: collaboration with local administrations than there is occurring now. So
[13:52] Speaker 1: they want it to be much more focused than it
[13:54] Speaker 1: is so the US and UK, for example, they kind
[13:57] Speaker 1: of target kids who are specifically below the poverty line,
[14:01] Speaker 1: so it's not a blanket thing, but for families who
[14:04] Speaker 1: qualify India has a very big program. It's much more
[14:07] Speaker 1: of a decentralized model, so it's a combination of federal
[14:11] Speaker 1: and state government funding and states are responsible for the implementations.
[14:17] Speaker 1: The states have to submit detailed plans on the number
[14:20] Speaker 1: of schools, a number of children, sort of transport costs
[14:23] Speaker 1: and so on, and they work a lot with NGOs
[14:26] Speaker 1: and there is research that shows an improvement in literacy
[14:29] Speaker 1: and health outcomes from that program.
[14:32] Speaker 2: Ross says perhaps the biggest issue for critics of the
[14:35] Speaker 2: program is the fact that it's being pitched as a
[14:37] Speaker 2: cure all for a raft of Indonesia's economic ailments.
[14:41] Speaker 1: The government or Proboo and his administration expect this program
[14:46] Speaker 1: to achieve so much on a macro level, you know,
[14:49] Speaker 1: create jobs, consumption, help parents, say, boost GDP, you name it,
[14:53] Speaker 1: plus nutrition and school outcomes. If you look at free
[14:57] Speaker 1: meal programs in other countries, they don't necessarily have such
[15:00] Speaker 1: a vast set of goals around them. In a way,
[15:05] Speaker 1: some countries they're simply focused on, let's get a free
[15:09] Speaker 1: meal each day to kids in need. Let's hopefully improve
[15:12] Speaker 1: their nutrition, and hopefully that means they come to school
[15:15] Speaker 1: more and they stay at school more. They're not necessarily
[15:18] Speaker 1: tied to a whole economic multiplier effect as they are
[15:23] Speaker 1: in this case.
[15:25] Speaker 2: Criticism of the program has come from all quarters, and
[15:28] Speaker 2: some people think it should be scrapped altogether. But Proboo
[15:32] Speaker 2: isn't backing down. Here's how he defended the free meal's
[15:35] Speaker 2: program in his New Year's speech in January.
[15:39] Speaker 3: Are there shortcomings? Yes, In an undertaking of the scale,
[15:45] Speaker 3: shortcomings are inevitable. Are there deviations? Yes, in an undertaking
[15:51] Speaker 3: of the scale, there definitely will be shortcomings and deviations.
[15:55] Speaker 3: But objectively, statistically, we can say that the program has
[16:00] Speaker 3: seated by ninety nine point.
[16:01] Speaker 4: Nine, So ross it.
[16:06] Speaker 2: It's pretty clear that the program isn't going away, but
[16:09] Speaker 2: it is already seeing some cutbacks because of pressures from
[16:13] Speaker 2: rising oil prices. The government recently decided to cut back
[16:16] Speaker 2: on meal offerings in some places from.
[16:18] Speaker 4: Six days a week to five.
[16:20] Speaker 2: What other changes do you think he might make to
[16:23] Speaker 2: the program? Might he roll it back even further?
[16:27] Speaker 1: If anything, Some investors are saying they see the chance
[16:30] Speaker 1: that he accelerates next year, because that's sort of the
[16:33] Speaker 1: point where you start to think about your reelection prospects.
[16:36] Speaker 1: If you're going to you run a lengthy election campaign,
[16:39] Speaker 1: and if he is going to run for reelection in
[16:41] Speaker 1: twenty twenty nine, then next to you start to see
[16:44] Speaker 1: the signs of that. So very unlikely that he he
[16:48] Speaker 1: scales back at least significantly. There may be further changes
[16:52] Speaker 1: to the program, you know. Again, so not six days
[16:55] Speaker 1: a week but five days a week, which is already
[16:57] Speaker 1: something they're doing. Perhaps they at the number of kitchens,
[17:01] Speaker 1: Perhaps they do trim the budget for it even further.
[17:05] Speaker 1: But there's no sense at all that he's going to
[17:09] Speaker 1: make a wholesale departure from this program. He's put too
[17:12] Speaker 1: much of his political capital into it to do so.
[17:20] Speaker 2: This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm
[17:23] Speaker 2: Rebecca Cheung Wilkins. To get more from The Big Take
[17:26] Speaker 2: and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe
[17:30] Speaker 2: today at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast Offer. If you
[17:34] Speaker 2: like the episode, make sure to subscribe and review The
[17:36] Speaker 2: Big Take Asia wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps
[17:39] Speaker 2: people find the show. Thanks for listening, See you next time.

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