Hamilton becomes the country’s lunchbox capital creating 100 new catering jobs
Friday, 1 November 2024
One hundred new jobs will be created in Hamilton as the city becomes the lunchbox of the nation.
All frozen school lunches from Kaitaia to Bluff will be made in Pukete in a purpose built plant operated by The School Lunch Collective.
The collective is a partnership between global giant Compass, Gilmours (Foodstuffs) and food service provider Libelle Group. With ingredients supplied by over 17 New Zealand based food manufacturers and suppliers, the Pukete kitchen will prepare food for 124,941 students (as at October 2024) across the country for $71.2 million per annum at $3 a meal.
Libelle’s industrial scale kitchen - purpose-built for Ka Ora Ka Ako School Lunch programme - opened last year.
A spokesperson from the School Lunch Collective said Hamilton had the best facility amongst the 20 Libelle kitchens across the country.
The supplier currently makes 25,000 meals a day in Pukete for schoolchildren, RNZ reported last year.
The meals prepared in Hamilton will be delivered chilled to 29 central production kitchens located throughout the country, where they will be stored, heated (if applicable) and then delivered to schools. The locations of those kitchens is still being finalised.
The meals are $5 cheaper than the current model and Minister of Education David Seymour claims it will put $130 million back in the Government’s coffers next year. Savings will increase to $170m once primary schools are included in the centralised scheme.
While a substantial number of new jobs have been created in Hamilton, 75 local lunch providers have not had their contracts renewed including Morrinsville’s Te Puna Kai Catering who will let 15 staff go.
Seymour sympathised with people losing jobs, but said the program was not meant to employ people in the first place.
He said the goal was to provide “nutritious, delicious meals at an affordable price” to students who want them.
“It's a very tough time with unemployment being what it is, especially across the Waikato.
“We sympathise, but we're not going to improve the New Zealand economy by having a government that spends more than it has to get an outcome.”
Seymour said if the goal was to employ people, the Government would be doing that with borrowed money.
“You've got to think about, do you want to produce the same stuff for a higher price, drive inflation and interest rates up and lose jobs elsewhere?
“Or do you want to do this efficiently, free up cash and allow people to be employed elsewhere?”
When Waikato Times asked Seymour - as he tucked into a feed at a Cambridge Maccas - why a multinational corporation was chosen over local companies he said they were purchasing a service on behalf of New Zealanders.
Why was Hamilton chosen? 'As it happened, the crowd that had been able to give us the best deal, they do most of their food preparation in Hamilton.”
In 2013 Compass Group PLC was found to have unknowingly sold burgers with horse DNA to schools in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
And in 2016, hundreds of protesters demonstrated against a decision by Dunedin Hospital to outsource its meals to Compass, describing the food as “slop”.
“I think whoever was the provider, I suspect that there would be criticisms,” Seymour said.
“If the task was to find a provider who's been in business, has a long track record and has never faced a criticism, we probably couldn't have done that.
“I don’t think we’re going to find anyone where there’s never ever been incident in the history.”
Sean Teddy, Hautū (Leader) Operations and Integration at the Ministry of Education, said 130,000 students will receive lunches from the School Lunch Collective in 2025.
Schools currently running an internal model where they make lunches themselves, or work with an iwi or hapū partner will be able to continue to do so.