The identity of a creepy-crawly found in a West Auckland high school student’s roast chicken lunch last month has been revealed.
An investigation was launched in late May after what appeared to be a dead larva was found in a Government-supplied school lunch.
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New Zealand Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle said laboratory testing results revealed the larva was of a potato tuber moth, a pest which affects potatoes around the world.
Adult potato tuber moths laid eggs on leaves and potatoes, and their larvae then burrowed into the potatoes.
“The larva was cooked, meaning it burrowed into the potato prior to the lunch being produced,” Arbuckle said.
“The larva did not present a food safety risk and there is no evidence that there is a wider food safety issue with the School Lunch Collective.”
The new programme, introduced this year by the coalition Government to reduce the cost of that previously introduced by Labour, dealt with several early issues.
Some schools complained about meals arriving late, or even not at all. Other schools complained about “frozen” and “burnt” school lunches with plastic melted into its contents, with many children opting to skip on the meals entirely. One Gisborne school was feeding the lunches to their pet pig.
One of the scheme’s three main providers, Libelle – which provided around 125,000 meals a day – went into liquidation in March and subsequently agreed to sell its lunch operation to Compass Group NZ, the main lunch provider.
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In early May, the Auditor-General’s office announced plans for an inquiry into the programme.
The inquiry would cover the Ministry of Education’s planning, procurement and contract implementation under David Seymour’s alternative model.
“Concerns have been raised, both in the media and with us directly, about aspects of the revised lunch programme, including the selection of the providers, the quality, timeliness, and appropriateness of the food provided, how the cost of each lunch was determined, and what the Ministry communicated with previous providers,” the Auditor-General’s office said
“Because of the importance of these services, the concerns we have heard, and the amount of funding involved, we have decided to carry out an inquiry.”
