Local media has reported that fish milk is being considered to be added to the nation’s school lunch programs next year.

President-elect Prabowo Subianto’s free lunch programme, which aims to provide lunch every day for children, is slated to cost 71 trillion Indonesian Rupiah (AU$6.89 billion).

However, domestic fresh milk supply is only able to supply about 22.7 per cent of the country’s needs, while the rest has to be imported.

Now, there are talks of using fish milk to supplement the milk shortage.

Local fishermen send loads of ponyfish, twice a day, to a factory to be deboned and ground into a fine, white, protein-filled powder.

Next, the fish milk is brought to another facility to be mixed with a sugary flavour like strawberry or chocolate, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“It just tastes like normal milk, at least to me,” manager Mafatihul Khoiri of milk maker Berikan Protein Initiative.

Local media has reported that fish milk is being considered to be added to the nation’s school lunch programs next year.

President-elect Prabowo Subianto’s free lunch programme, which aims to provide lunch every day for children, is slated to cost 71 trillion Indonesian Rupiah (AU$6.89 billion).

Some experts are hesitant about the idea of fish milk as it needs to be ultra-processed with sugar and artificial sweetening.

Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin believes there are other ways to manage the cow shortage.

“We can grow cows … Or we can import the milk from Australia. Or we can buy an Australian cow company or milk company,” he told the Journal.

“There are many, many, many options to do before we are milking the fish,” he said.