Jakarta (Greeners) – Indonesia’s Food and Drugs Agency or BPOM and DKI Jakarta police took action on food distributors in South Jakarta on May 16-17 with 190,000 coffee sachets of Pak Belalang allegedly changed its expiry dates, with economic value reaches to Rp1.4 billion (US$97,438).
The investigation shows that the perpetrators conducted three violations, first, the coffee was illegal imported. Second, the packaging put “King of Nusantara Coffee” while it’s foreign product. And, third the labels are not in line with the ones approved by the agency, including change expiry dates.
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Penny K. Lukito, head of the agency said that the agency had revoked the permit of ‘Pak Belalang’ coffee for administrative and criminal violations under the 2012 Law on Food.
In addition, the agency will expand the investigation to check on related parties contributing to the violations.
“The agency will not be hesitant to take actions against violators of food and drugs crimes. Hence, all business must comply with regulations. Public is expected to be careful in choosing food to consume,” she said in Jakarta on Monday (20/05/2019).
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Furthermore, she said that replacing expiry dates is an old method, however they could only found it on supermarkets or retailers. Nevertheless, the agency managed to found evidences of tools used, witnesses, and suspects.
“From the investigation results, new mode of operation can be investigated and become information in the future to map out crimes of food and drugs,” she said adding that the coffee is sold under multilevel marketing and there’s possible for online distribution.
Hence, she encourages for people to buy from legal distributors and don’t buy from unclear or doubtful source of production.
Reports by Dewi Purningsih
21 Apr 2024 
