THREE KEY FACTS
- The Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches Programme faces criticism after a dead insect larva was found in a meal at Kelston Boys’ High.
- The programme, overhauled to deliver “nutritious” meals and save $130 million, has faced numerous complaints about food quality and delivery.
- Prime Minister Christopher Luxon acknowledges some lunches were “not up to scratch” but emphasises that parents need to prevent their children from going hungry.
The Government’s new-look cut-price school lunches programme is back in the spotlight, once again for all the wrong reasons.
The latest incident involves a dead insect larva found in a lunch delivered to Kelston Boys’ High in Auckland.
Photos of the chicken, potato and vegetable meal with the brown worm-like specimen, about twice the length of a fingernail, resting on it would have been enough to turn many stomachs.
Political condemnation was, unsurprisingly, brutal, with Labour slamming it as a “new low” and an “insult” to students who “deserve better.” The scheme’s champion, David Seymour, says investigators will get to the bottom of it.
The insect discovery is the latest in a string of problems that have plagued the Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches Programme since changes were introduced this year.
Free school lunches were first trialled in 2019 in some schools to address food insecurity, and the programme later expanded. Its providers cater for a total of about 235,000 students.
The current Government has changed the model to deliver “nutritious” meals and save more than $130 million. Eligible schools have the option of using an external provider, The School Lunch Collective, for $3 per learner per lunch or choose another option, such as preparing and delivering their lunches, for $4.
Seymour was quoted as saying the Government was using commercial expertise, government buying power and supply-chain efficiencies to save millions.
It’s a major undertaking. The collective serves about 130,000 students a day across 466 schools and expects to deliver about 20 million meals this year.
But achieving this on such a scale and in a way that saved so much money was never going to be straightforward.
There have been numerous and well-documented complaints that include poor food quality, late and cold meals and uneaten dishes. Some of the photos of meals published in online news stories certainly don’t look appetising.
In one case, a Hawke’s Bay school even fed “inedible” lunches to a local pig called Crackles.
The Crackles incident might elicit a chuckle, but there have been more serious incidents.
A Gisborne student was taken to hospital with serious burns after hot food spilled out because of improper packaging. Other lunches have reportedly exploded, and children have also eaten plastic melted into food, described by one principal as “unforgivable”.
An earlier NZ Herald editorial commented that it was surprising how Seymour could seriously think children would eat some of the meals that have been delivered.
There were 171 formal complaints from 93 schools to the Education Ministry from the start of term one to February 27 this year. Complaints included logistical issues, quantity of meals, late deliveries, missed deliveries and menu problems.
The auditor-general is investigating the programme’s planning, procurement and contract implementation.
The Education Ministry maintains that, overall, the scheme is working well. Yes, there have been some challenges, but recent deliveries have been more than 99% on time. Seymour believes the scheme’s providers are doing a “great job” and are responding to complaints quickly.
There will be two major schools of thought when it comes to free school lunches.
Some people will believe that the state has a responsibility to ensure students are not hungry at school and that they will learn better if they are fed properly. We should look after our most disadvantaged children.
Others will argue that it is up to parents to ensure their children have lunch, and there are parents whose kids are getting free lunches when they can afford it or parents spending lunch money on other things. It’s time for these parents to take more responsibility and stop relying on the state.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who has admitted some of the lunches were “not up to scratch”, believes it is up to the parents, and he would rather the state did not have the responsibility of feeding students.
But as he also told Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB: “The fact is that kids are actually coming to school with no lunch and I’m not willing to let them go hungry.”
So, there we have it. The Government has deemed free school lunches for some students to be necessary.
But if we’re going to have the scheme and spend millions on it, then we need to do it properly.
The problems complained about are not acceptable. The Government needs to do better.
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