Ministry of Health Requires Nutrition Labels for Ready-to-Eat Food and Beverages

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) has issued rules for the inclusion of nutrition labels in the form of Nutri Level on ready-to-eat foods, especially sweetened beverages, which will be applied to large-scale businesses as an effort to encourage a healthier pattern of public consumption.

The rules are contained in the Minister of Health (KMK) Decree Number HK.01.07/MENKES/301/2026 concerning the inclusion of nutrition labels and health messages on ready-to-eat foods published on Tuesday (14/4).

Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said that this policy was taken as an educational effort to prevent excessive consumption of sugar, salt and fat (GGL) that poses various risks of non-communicable diseases, including obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.

As an illustration, the four diseases that cause the largest financing burden of BPJS are related to excessive consumption of GGL. For example, the financing burden for kidney failure rose more than 400 percent to Rp. 13.38 trillion in 2025 from only Rp. 2.32 trillion in 2019.

"Therefore, efforts need to be made through information and education to make it easier for the public to choose the right and healthy ready-to-eat food according to their needs," said Budi.

He added that this policy is also part of the mandate of the Health Law so that all cross-sector disease prevention policies can run in harmony.

"The Health Law requires that cross-sector policies be coordinated. The Ministry of Health is responsible for regulating ready-to-eat foods, while processed foods or manufacturer products are the domain of the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM)," he explained.

This KMK in the initial stage does not target ready-to-eat businesses at the micro, small and medium scale such as warteg, carts and small or simple restaurants.

Ready-to-drink sweetened beverages, for example boba, teh tarik, coconut milk coffee, juice, which are made by large-scale businesses are required to list nutrition labels and health messages in the form of Nutri Level listed on information media as an effort to educate the public, especially to reduce excessive consumption of sweetened beverages.

The information media as referred to is the inclusion in the menu list, retail packaging, brochures, banners, flyers, menu lists on commercial electronic applications, leaflets, and/or other forms of information media.

The level of nutrition referred to consists of: - Level A in the form of a combination of the letter A with dark green color; - Level B in the form of a combination of the letter B with light green color; - Level C in the form of a combination of the letter C with yellow color; or - Level D in the form of a combination of the letter D with red color.

Level A has a lower GGL content than level B, level B has a lower GGL content than level C, and so on.

The inclusion of Nutri Level is based on the self-declaration of business actors regarding the GGL content from the results of government laboratory or other accredited laboratories.