New school lunches menu revealed - at $3 a pop

Tuesday, 22 October 2024

Associate minister for Education David Seymour announces the continued funding of the school lunches programme.

The new school lunches menu has been revealed - with Associate Education Minister David Seymour saying the new programme will cost $3 a lunch and save $130 million.

The Government had been working with local businesses to “transform” the school lunch programme, in a bid to save money.

At the launch of the new menu on Tuesday, Seymour said the Government had “embraced commercial expertise, used government buying power, and generated supply chain efficiencies to realise over $130m of annual cost savings”.

The savings were more than had been planned for under the Budget.

“By leveraging private sector expertise from companies like Compass Group, Gilmours, and over 17 food manufacturers and suppliers, we are setting a precedent for the government working with businesses to achieve better results,” said Seymour.

Associate Education Minister David Seymour says changes to the free school lunches programme will save $107m a year. (Video first published May 8 2024.)

Students will be fed hot and cold meals including butter chicken, chicken katsu, lasagne, chicken pasta, salad and wraps, costing $3 each.

Students in year 0 to 8 will receive the same sized meals (240 grams) and older students will receive larger lunches (at least 300g) – which will also include fruit, yoghurt or muesli bars.

Schools will either have lunches delivered daily or have access to government-negotiated wholesale ingredients to make their own lunches.

Those schools who make their own will receive an increase in per student funding - to $4 per student - to employ people to prepare the meals.

“Instead of applying a different model for students year 7 and over, we have successfully negotiated a like for like solution for all student age groups in the programme,” said Seymour.

“Composite schools (years 0-13) and full primary (years 0-8) will use this model from 2025 and contributing primary schools (year 0 - 6) from 2026.”

The Government will also provide food for up to 10,000 two-to-five-year-olds who attend low-equity, community-based early learning services, funded by savings found in the lunch programme. More information on this was to come.

Seymour expected the programme to evolve over time.