Schools frustrated by administration ‘debacle’ from new lunch programme - and ‘chatbot that doesn’t work’

Tuesday, 11 February 2025

School lunch waste management had become an issue for schools since the programme changed this year. (File image)

The principal of a small rural South Island school is frustrated with the added cost and logistics that has come from changes to the school lunches programme, saying it is putting pressure on school staff.

The heads of schools in Canterbury echoed his concerns, calling the issues “teething problems”.

The Government last year projected it would save $130 million annually by cutting back the cost of school lunches from up to $8.68 per student to $3 a meal.

Murchison Area School principal, Andy Ashworth with previous lunches made by a local business.

But problems with the roll-out of the new programme has seen lunches delivered late, school leaders forced to sort and deliver meals, and frustration at the rubbish from meals being picked up the following day - causing a smelly carnage for schools to return to.

Murchison Area School previously received lunches made by the café next door, through the Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches programme.

Lunches from the healthy school lunch programme, Ka Ora Ka Ako cost the Government $3 each.

But now the lunches for its more than 200 pupils are made via the same programme but in Hamilton - 800 kilometres away.

Principal Andy Ashworth said the food was “fine” but the logistics were proving frustrating.

“I have no problem with the quality of the food, but the admin is absolutely incredibly frustrating. It’s ridiculous and doesn’t work,’ he said.

He said schools could make changes to their meal orders on the Ka Ora, Ka Ako website but it took two weeks for changes to happen.

“I have got new kids without meals. If I have a kid suddenly become vegetarian or gluten free, then their meals won’t change for two weeks.

“It’s just a joke. They have a chatbot and that doesn’t work. I get three or four emails a day from within the Ka Ora, Ka Aka contradicting each other and there are no names on them. They are all ‘no reply’ emails, so you can’t get in touch with anyone to figure out who you need to listen to. It’s really incredibly frustrating.”

He said schools with more than 350 pupils get some Ministry of Education funding to employ people to distribute the meals.

Rawhiti School in Christchurch has seen a drop in the number of nauseous, hungry kids turning up to the sickbay after starting its free Healthy School Lunches programme.

“I’m a school with more than 200 pupils and I get nothing. We are having to employ a lunch lady for an hour a day. It’s costing us $5000 and that is coming out of the school operations grant - so directly taken from kids’ education to feed these kids.”

Ashworth said he spent two hours on Friday and Monday on the issue.

“I must be the highest paid dinner lady in the country. If I’m dealing with this, who is running the school?”

Rawhiti School in Christchurch had last week been forced to pull office staff and deputy principals from their daily tasks to sort and distribute meals, which its former local provider did.

Principal Liz Weir said it was proving a “big task” and was “not a great use of their professional time”.

She will use ministry funding to employ someone to do that, but money was only available for the first two terms, she said.

“After term two I will have to find funding for that from my school operating budget.”

The meals, which - like other schools in the country - come from Hamilton frozen and are then reheated, are “less appealing to our children”, Weir added.

She estimates there has been about a 20% fall in interest from students since the new system started last week, she said.

“We are grateful for the resource but we definitely don’t think we’re there yet for systems and procedures, the presentation of the food and menu choices,” she said.

Peggy Burrows, principal of Christchurch’s Haeata Community Campus, said the added administrative challenges had been “a debacle”.

Another issue was waste management, she said. Previously, the local lunch provider would pick up the waste and delivery containers the same day, whereas now Haeata has to store the waste overnight to be picked up the next day.

“On Friday we had to keep it all weekend - you can imagine what it smells like by Monday.”

Hillmorton High School principal Ann Brokenshire said there had been “pretty big issues” logistically, but that schools also had “teething problems” when the scheme was initially introduced years ago.

Secondary Principals Association of NZ president, Vaughan Couillault, says large high schools are bearing the cost of distributing school lunches to students.

The school has just under 1400 students, about 200 of whom have special dietary requirements.

The lunches used to come specifically packed for each form class, which then had special dietary meals like gluten free added to them.

Now containers of 44 lunches are sent - when the school does not have class sizes of 44 - and special meals have students’ names written on, which is “not straight forward” and “time consuming” to repack containers in class size with correct meals.

“The main food doesn’t always look the most appetising, but the feedback I’m getting is that it’s fine,” Brokenshire said.

“For our kids to get a hot meal is fantastic … for some of them this is the hot meal of the day.

“[Regarding] the logistics around it, we’ve got a meeting set up with the ministry for later this week and our hope will be they listen and be responsive … to hopefully iron them out.”

Secondary Principals Association president Vaughan Couillault told RNZ his school was facing an extra bill of $22,000 a year for distributing the lunches.

He was getting $1000 in funding a week but it was costing about $1500 to $1600 for support staff to distribute the lunches.