Social media has recently been filled with concerns over food trays used in the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program, which are suspected of containing harmful substances, including pork oil. The National Nutrition Agency (BGN) is currently conducting further examinations to verify the claims, as the food trays were reportedly imported from Chaoshan, China.
UGM expert in halal product analysis, Professor Abdul Rohman, noted the possibility of pork oil being used as a softening component in the trays.
“It is possible that pork fat was used as a softening agent mixed with other oils, such as mineral oil,” he said on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025.
Professor Rohman did not comment further on the alleged pork oil content in the MBG trays, as the case is still under investigation by the BGN team following reports circulating on social media.
The claims refer to an article published by Indonesia Business Post, which conducted an investigation in the region supplying MBG trays for Indonesia.
It is reported that around 30 to 40 factories are involved in producing food trays for the global market.
However, Professor Rohman explained the stages required to detect pork oil content in food containers. According to him, the first step is extraction.
“The fat is first extracted so that the pork oil can be isolated, and then it is analyzed using specific methods,” he explained.
One of the most common methods is gas chromatography equipped with a mass spectrometer detector (GC-MS), which helps identify the fatty acids present.
“The fatty acids obtained are compared with fatty acids identified in pork fat,” said the UGM Faculty of Pharmacy lecturer.
In addition to GC-MS, Professor Rohman added that another method used is LC-HRMS, which identifies biomarkers of pork fat.
“This method is generally more widely applied by experts,” he said.
Author: Salwa
Editor: Gusti Grehenson
Post-editor: Lintang Andwyna
Photograph: Jawapos