(Bloomberg) -- Indonesia’s incoming government will work with the local unit of Dutch dairy producer Royal FrieslandCampina NV, among other companies, to trial its free lunch program.

In August, PT Frisian Flag Indonesia will start a six-month pilot run at 10 schools in Cikarang, an industrial hub just outside of the capital Jakarta, said Corine Tap, who heads FrieslandCampina’s Asia business. The company will provide its signature milk products and help put together healthy meals for students, she said.

“We have already been doing that through a number of school programs in the country,” Tap said in an interview on Tuesday. “Now with the new president’s office, we are very happy to collaborate on piloting these nutritious meals program. Hopefully, we can step up so that more children will have access to dairy products.”

President-elect Prabowo Subianto’s key campaign promise included a pledge to give free lunches to nearly 83 million school children, which could need over 6 million tons of rice, 1 million tons of chicken meat, and 4 million kiloliters of fresh cow’s milk annually. The plan is meant to improve children’s health outcomes and create new opportunities for local businesses to supply the program.

Frisian Flag’s newly inaugurated 25-hectare Cikarang plant is ready not only to meet demand from its fast-growing Southeast Asian business, but also help supply the school meals program, said Tap. The 3.8 trillion rupiah ($231 million) facility — FrieslandCampina’s biggest global investment — can produce 700 million kilograms of dairy products annually. There’s scope to expand that capacity up to 1 billion kilograms later on.

Here’s more from the interview:

  • Frisian Flag expects to drive sales growth to “healthy single digits” in the coming years in line with the broader sector’s growth, a rebound from when post-pandemic inflation hit revenue
  • About 90% of Cikarang plant’s output will go toward Indonesia, which still has lower dairy consumption compared with neighbors, with the rest being exported to Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines
  • Frisian Flag expects to expand supply of raw materials from 30,000 smallholder farmers

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