School Lunches: Give Schools Option To Use In-School And Community Providers Immediately, Union Says

The Government should immediately allow schools to opt back into using in-school and community providers for school lunches rather than its centralised School Lunch Collective, education union NZEI Te Riu Roa says.

Te Manukura | President Ripeka Lessels is calling for schools to be given the option as the union releases a survey of more than 200 principals and area school kaiako about the new lunch programme, which finds almost 80% of respondents were ‘not satisfied’ with the lunches provided by the collective.

“The schools that can use local, in-house, and iwi providers are vocal about their love and appreciation for locally provided kai, and the positive holistic outcomes it creates for tamariki.

“This stands in stark contrast to the new, centralised providers, who have delivered wholly unappetising meals – not to mention the ones that haven't turned up or have been delivered containing melted plastic or so hot they have burnt children,” she says.

“Schools should have the right to opt out of the Government’s disastrous and dangerous lunch provision and return to their former providers, and not one more school should be transferred to the School Lunch Collective.”

Some primary schools have not yet switched to the new model but are due to do so in 2026, which should now be out of the question, Ms Lessels says.

The survey is released the same week that Libelle Group, one of the contractors engaged to provide school lunches as part of the School Lunch Collective, went into liquidation.

It was carried out last week, prior to this latest disaster, with NZEI Te Riu Roa requesting to hear positive and negative feedback.

In the survey, principals and area school kaiako pointed out the overwhelming differences in quality between their former local providers and the Government’s new ones, with many children going hungry rather than eat the new food, which then affected their learning.

“The kids hardly eat it so they are hungry, grumpy and can't stay focussed,” said one.

The smell and appearance of the new food was off-putting, said another. “Previously students would go back for seconds or thirds of the fresh veges and salads. We now have the same waste daily as we had in one week previously.”

Another said: “We used to have 80% of our school in the lunch programme; now it is less than 50%. Of those children only half again will even eat the meals, not many are finishing the lunches. Our previous provider worked with us to ensure that the meals were nutritious and eaten by the students. We received meals that the children looked forward to, we had more and more children daily re-joining the lunch programme.”

Some pointed out the previous model “wasn’t broken” and were clear about their wish to return to former providers: “We had a perfect system. Healthy school lunches provided by local people every day. Those three people are now unemployed.”

“The previous school lunch system was reliable, working and fit for purpose. It didn't involve any additional work from school staff or cost to our school. We were very thankful for them. Five weeks into the new system, it is unreliable, disruptive and at a cost in money to our learning programmes," said another.

One said: “Bring back local providers which means local jobs, fresher and more adaptable meal options.”

More than three-quarters receiving lunches through the School Lunch Collective said staff time spent on the lunches had also increased since the model changed, as they had to take valuable time out of the classroom to distribute meals, clean up, deal with the rubbish, or supply lunch themselves when meals invariably didn’t arrive or were inedible.

Schools do not receive extra staffing or budget to cover these tasks or to replace kai.

For one, the change had "single handedly created the largest workload" they could recall in nearly 20 years.

The survey responses also detailed many other issues, including meals arriving unmarked, special meals missing, packaging hot enough to burn staff and children, packaging that was difficult to open, repetitive recipes, poor quality, very small portions, and huge food and packaging waste.

Only 7.5% of those receiving lunches from the School Lunch Collective said they were satisfied, while 14% said they felt neutral.

Notes:

NZEI Te Riu Roa received 223 responses to its survey on school lunches.

53.8% of respondents were supplied by the School Lunch Collective, 22.9% had in-house arrangements. 18.8% had a local provider, while 4.5% were on the iwi and hapū social procurement model.

Of those being supplied by the School Lunch Collective, just 7.5% of respondents were satisfied with the lunches, while 78.3% were not satisfied. 14.2% answered neutrally.

77.5% of respondents receiving lunches under the School Lunch Collective programme said the changes had increased the amount of staff time on school lunches.

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