Groups and government officials call for ban on hot-selling ‘Bikini’ snacks

“Remas Aku” (squeeze me) are the instruction on the front of the snack package, which shows a cartoon image of the torso of a woman wearing a bikini.

But this snack isn’t called ‘Bikini’ just because of its risque packaging. Instead, Bikini is meant to be an awkward abbreviation for “bihun kekinian”, which translates to “trendy bihun” – in this case bihun (thin rice noodles) that have been puffed into snack form.

The “Remas Aku” instruction is meant to serve a functional purpose – just like older noodle-based snacks, one is advised to squeeze and crush the contents prior to opening the package so that you’ll have smaller, more easily chewable noodle pieces to snack on.

You won’t be able to find Bikini at your local supermarket. But that hasn’t stopped Bikini from becoming a huge online shopping hit, with hordes of new accounts popping up on Instagram selling the snack.

The innuendo-laden snack may be proof that sex does indeed sell. But there are many who find the way it is being marketed distasteful, with various government officials and groups across Indonesia calling for a ban on the Bikini craze.

“YLKI (The Indonesian Consumers Foundation) expresses our protest and we demand that the product be pulled from distribution. BPOM (The Drug and Food Monitoring Agency) must issue a stern warning to its producers and stop its sale online,” YLKI head Tulus Abadi wrote in a statement, as picked up by Warta Kota yesterday.

Tulus also said that Bikini sports a fake halal certification logo on its packaging and that it’s vulgar nature is especially inappropriate for children.

While it’s not known who produces Bikini, it is thought to originate from Bandung. The city’s mayor Ridwan Kamil has also condemned the snack and called for its ban.

If you are still thinking of buying Bikini despite the controversy, it should be noted that the product has not passed any sort of government mandated food safety inspections.



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