The Coalition Government’s new school lunch programme has begun with some schools paying to help feed their students when deliveries were late.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour, who spearheaded the transformation of the school lunches program, and the supplier acknowledged there had been some early issues.
The six-year-old free lunch programme introduced by the Labour Government was remodelled by the coalition Government last year.
The number of intermediate and secondary school students receiving lunches did not change but $130 million in funding annually was saved by using bigger suppliers.
British multinational Compass Group now runs the program, tasked with creating nutritious, tasty meals for kids at $3 a head.
McAuley High School in Auckland was supposed to receive lunches at around 10.45am yesterday, but did not receive them until 2.50pm.
Deputy principal Miles Sengers said staff had to go up the road to a fruit shop because they were not confident that food would arrive.
“We’re especially concerned coming into next week with all the schools back, the number of provided meals will be four or five times larger, so if they were struggling with what we saw yesterday, my confidence that they can supply food to all the schools is challenged at the moment.”
Henderson Intermediate principal Viv Carr said she had to order $1000 worth of pizza for 750 students after the lunches arrived an hour and a half late.
“The truck driver said they had no communication with HQ as to alerting schools.”
Kaitao Intermediate principal Phil Palfrey told 1News that the truck bringing lunches to his Rotorua school did not arrive until 1.55pm on Wednesday.
“I went and bought some apples and some muesli bars to tide them over. The kids were able to have something before they went home, they didn’t starve, they had something to eat.”
He said he spent around $530 on feeding students.
Seymour says quality, deliveries will improve
Associate Education Minister David Seymour told media there would “no doubt be teething problems” in the rollout of the Healthy School Lunches scheme.
“We apologise for that, but we also just point out that this is an operation of getting 230,000 meals on time, at the right temperature, to children in communities up and down this country.”
He said operational issues were behind the delays to food deliveries.
“They produce a large number of meals, they then have to defrost them. In the first week they got some timing wrong and I understand there’s been some complaints, particularly in Rotorua.”
He said there would be a “variety of opinions” on the quality of the lunches and that this was true of any food “whether you’re at a fast food joint, a Michelin-star restaurant, or your nan’s home cooking”.
“We are committed to continuous improvement and ensuring that the quality of meals continues to improve, so that students are able to say ‘you know, it may not be the best meal I’ve ever had, it’s definitely not the worst, I think it’s pretty good’.”
Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said the Government had chosen to prioritise cuts over proper nutrition for Kiwi kids.
“This Government slashed school lunch funding and handed the job to a global corporation instead of supporting local suppliers — now kids are stuck with worse meals.
“Instead of investing in children’s nutrition and supporting local food suppliers, this government chose cost-cutting ahead of quality.”
The School Lunch Collective, a partnership between Compass Group NZ, Libelle Group and Gilmours, also acknowledged “teething problems” in the first few days of the programme.
“We apologise to the schools and students affected by this and are in contact with them to address these early challenges,” said Paul Harvey.
“We appreciate the patience and support they have given so far. With over 127,000 meals being sent around the country every school day, we are learning each day, and are committed to supporting students education through the Healthy School Lunches Programme.”