New school lunches ‘look like cat food’, student says

Saturday, 1 March 2025

Meals from the Government’s new school lunch provider are going to waste, Wellington secondary school says, as students don’t want to eat the poor quality food.

Blade Funaki gave the Government’s new school lunch programme a day, before he decided to bring lunches from home instead.

The year 12 Mana College student is among a growing number of students who do not want to eat free school lunches since the Government’s new Ka Ora Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches Programme began with a shambolic start to the year.

“It actually looks like cat food right now … the new lunches are so disgusting and students don’t want to eat it,” Funaki said.

Year 12 student Blade Funaki says the meals look like cat food and many are going to waste.

He was concerned that for his school, considered to have many socio-economic barriers in the Equity Index Band, bringing lunches from home was not a simple choice for everyone.

The New Zealand Principals' Federation, representing more than 2000 principals from the education sector, wrote to the ACT leader and associate education minister David Seymour this week to say the “global company” brought in to provide the new cost-saving lunches “has not delivered on your expectations, nor on ours”.

Going from a local provider which cooked meals at the school canteen every day at Mana College to the new provider School Lunch Collective this year had seen a reduction in quality and consistency in the meals, principal Jeff Chapman said.

The hidden impact of new school lunch programme

The uptake had gone up initially but boxes filled with lunches were now going to waste. He estimated about 150 of their 520 lunches were going uneaten.

The previous lunches were bigger, nicer, didn’t require transport because they were made onsite and the recycling and compost were visibly being done.

It also initially had a set 10-day meal roster but that lasted only a couple of weeks. “Now, it’s just whatever turns up on the day,” Chapman said.

One day 126 meals were missing, requiring the school to buy pizza; on others the number of sides would vary between one and three when they were meant to have two.

Earlier this month, pies were delivered as a “special menu” because the provider was struggling with its production and a handwritten gluten free labelled pie – with gluten in the ingredients – was provided to a student.

Brian Riley, Isaiah Collins and Jayden Roskam - students at Mana College holding the Government's new school lunches on Thursday.

On another occasion, a vegan curry was supplied in a plastic bag, Chapman said.

When asked what was on the menu on Thursday, year 12 student Isaiah Collins said “lasagne, I think”.

It was edible and Thursday’s menu was “OK” but the food was “on and off” and not as good as last year, he said.

Funaki said it was “not good enough from the Government” to provide poor quality food and was creating more waste than the previous model. It did not feel like they truly cared for students’ learning, he said.

Principal Jeff Chapman says it wants school lunches but the revamped programme is not good enough and meals are going to waste because students don’t want to eat them.

“Even if you look at some of the lunches, they’re not even like half eaten.”

“One of the best things that a generation can give to another is an easier time … but what we’re doing is not transformative change, what we’re doing is making steps backwards.”

Chapman said it had increased workload for staff because they no longer had the previous provider’s team who ran the entire delivery and hiring people was hard on an already tight budget.

“We’re here for being in the classroom, administrating the school, delivering the curriculum and providing great lessons, not delivering lunches.”

The School Lunch Collective said it was too early in the programme to share data on overall wastage.

Vegan curry delivered in a plastic bag to Mana College by the Government's new school lunch provider.

It was working with the ministry to ensure there was as little food waste as possible but relied on schools to provide accurate orders to adjust delivery sizes.

In a letter to Seymour, Porirua City councillor Geoff Hayward said several schools in the Onepoto Ward from Tītahi Bay to Porirua East continued to express concerns including the quality of the food, the responsiveness of the Collective to requests from schools, under-delivering on the amount of lunches required, and the inability to meet the specific dietary needs of their students.

'My communities are dealing with the consequences of your decisions.“

Seymour said the programme cost had been reduced from $340 million a year to $170m.

System improvements had been made by the Collective since initial inconsistencies, he said.

“Spending an extra $170m per year to achieve the same results for students cannot be justified.”

Currently, 69 suppliers provide school lunches in addition to schools where lunches are made on site. Of those, the biggest are Compass Group NZ and Libelle Group, who form part of The School Lunch Collective.

The collective’s bulk meals are prepared and cooked in Hamilton and distributed frozen to 22 kitchens around New Zealand to be thawed, heated and delivered.