Yet the flagship initiative is rapidly losing public trust for a simple and damning reason: The food keeps making children sick.

Last week, nearly 1,000 students across the country fell ill after eating meals prepared under the program. Health officials suspect bacterial contamination from improper handling and storage. In each case, children ended up in hospital beds, frightened parents gathered outside emergency wards and local health offices scrambled to explain what had gone wrong.

The goal of the program is both urgent and laudable. Nearly one in four Indonesian children under 5 is stunted, a measure of chronic malnutrition that carries lifelong consequences for health and learning.

The program aims to reach some 92 million people by 2029, beginning with about 20 million beneficiaries this year. It is among the most ambitious and expensive food aid schemes in the world. The government has floated budgets running into the hundreds of trillions of rupiah for future expansion.

But scale and speed have become liabilities. By mid-year, the National Nutrition Agency (BGN) had established thousands of kitchens and distribution points with little time to ensure proper food safety systems were in place.

Experts and local health authorities have pointed to failures in hygiene, storage and supply chains. The Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) has been repeatedly called in after mass illnesses, only to confirm what any parent already feared: The meals themselves were the problem.