Don't Be Enticed by Bright Colors, BBPOM Finds Formalin Food in Supermarket

The Mayor of West Jakarta Iin Mutmainnah and his staff together with the National Agency for Food and Drug Monitoring (BBPOM) in Jakarta conducted a food safety raid at a supermarket in Kembangan, Jakbar, Tuesday (23/12/2025). (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The Jakarta Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BBPOM) together with the West Jakarta City Government found food products containing harmful ingredients during a sudden inspection (sidak) at a supermarket in the Kembangan area, West Jakarta.

The findings show that there is still a risk of food safety in the market that the public needs to be aware of.

One of the products that were declared unsafe was pala candy which is known to contain formalin.

"But there are also unsafe ones, pala sweets (a type of food). This pala candy actually contains formalin," said the Mayor of West Jakarta Iin Mutmainnah after a raid in West Jakarta, Tuesday.

Iin explained that the findings were obtained after testing 16 samples of food sold at the supermarket. The results, most of them are safe to eat, but one item is proven to contain harmful preservatives.

"This is unexpected by us in general. The appearance is also not visible. The public does not know for sure, thinking that formalin must be in the tahu, in the tempe, but this is in the pala candy," said Iin.

Based on these findings, Iin reminded the public to be more careful and not only rely on visual appearance when buying food, especially processed products.

"We need to be careful again when we buy food that is like that, it looks bright in color but then, we check it again, we need to be careful," he said.

He also encouraged the public to use technology to ensure food safety, one of which is by using official applications provided by the government.

"So, people now before buying it check it first and this is not difficult, in the application (name of food) can be checked. It is downloaded directly on each person's HP, it is very easy," said Iin.

In addition to the findings of formalin-containing food, BBPOM Jakarta also found a number of other products that do not meet the provisions, ranging from spoiled food to products with distribution permits that are no longer valid.

"We found three damaged product items, then it was also found that the product's expiration date was not valid, two items," said Head of the Jakarta POM Headquarters, Sofiyani Chandrawati.

Sofiyani added that the raid was not only focused on food sample testing, but also on a thorough evaluation of self-service governance, ranging from product planning to storage and serving processes.

"Management, for example, starts from planning the products it sells, then storing them in refrigerators, to the product itself," said Sofi.