David Seymour Defends New School Lunches That Some Compare To Prison Food

Thursday, 30 January 2025, 9:19 pm
Article: RNZ

Felix Walton, reporter

David Seymour is defending new school lunches that some students are comparing to prison food.

While visiting an Auckland high school to see the results of his reworked school lunch programme, the Associate Education Minister apologised for late deliveries to a number of schools that had left kids hungry.

The revised programme brought the cost of each meal down to $3 and would, on paper, save taxpayers over $130 million a year without sacrifices to quality and nutrition.

It sounds too good to be true, and according to Ōtāhuhu College student Heremoko, it is.

"I've asked other students around the school, they have been describing it as bland, they've been describing the looks as like prison food," she said.

"Yeah, they haven't been enjoying it very much and we're hoping that they can improve this for all our students."

She said it was a step down from last year's meals under the old programme.

"Last year we actually knew what we were eating, we could see it. This year we're questioning what we're eating,

"It looks like pasta, some meat, probably beef and mixed with carrots. But that's it. No salt, no nothing."

Eating her 300 gram portion of defrosted pasta, Divya did not think it would get her through the day.

"I'm eating the vegetarian food right now and personally I think it's really bland... It's really overcooked pasta and I don't think it provides the nutrition we need as students," she said. "It won't fuel us for the day."

She expected most of her fellow classmates to avoid the free lunches as much as possible.

"I don't think many students would want to eat this every day. I would rather bring my food from home because I know what the contents are in it and I know that it's balanced, healthy and nutritional."

Seymour was aware of the complaints, which he downplayed to media during a stand up on the school field.

"With any food, it doesn't matter if you're at a fast food joint, a Michelin-style restaurant or your nan's home cooking, there will always be a variety of opinions about the quality of the food," he said.

Just around the corner, at Ōtāhuhu Intermediate School, Principal Tanya Brook said the meals had been late for three days in a row.

"The first day of school for us this year was Tuesday and our lunches were 45 minutes late. Yesterday, fingers crossed, we were hoping for the best, but they were actually an hour and a half late," she exclaimed.

"Fingers crossed hoping that today would be better. It is currently 47 minutes into our lunchtime and we've had no lunches arrive with us yet."

Brook said that on Wednesday the school had ordered pizzas to keep the students energised, an expense she planned to ask the Ministry of Education to reimburse.

Seymour apologised for the late deliveries, which he attributed to teething problems as the new programme began its first week.

"There's been some operational issues relating to having the meals thawed in time. They got some timing wrong and they arrived late," he said.

"We apologise for that but we also just make the point that these are teething problems as you scale up an enormous operation."

Teething problems or otherwise, Brook said it was not good enough.

"This is frustrating, I get it, it's a new system, there's obviously some teething problems but these kids, they deserve to eat and they knew way ahead of time what our lunchtimes were," she said.

"It's unacceptable that we're getting these lunches an hour, an hour and a half late."

A rocky start for the government's new lunch programme, which some schools are finding hard to swallow.

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