Some principals are reporting major problems with the revamped school lunch scheme which began this week, but David Seymour says the scheme is rolling out "pretty well."
Massey Primary School Principal Bruce Barnes told Checkpoint his school has received ham in halal lunches, meals have arrived late, and there had not been enough vegetarian meals.
He says only about 50 percent of his students have wanted the lunch and a promised waste facility for leftovers has not materialised.
The minister needed to talk to those operating the scheme to figure out how to fix the problems, he said.
The School Lunch Collective acknowledged teething problems and apologised to schools and students affected.
Barnes said there had been a number of issues with the new school lunch programme that needed to be resolved.
For example, the meals that were delivered the other day which were supposed to be Halal-friendly had ham in it, he said.
"A lot of my students couldn't eat it.
"So I begin to wonder is all the meat in the meals that they're giving me, is it Halal friendly?"
Associate Education minister David seymour said the scheme was "rolling out pretty well" and that he had received mixed feedback.
"I'm certain that when you deliver 230,000 meals to about 1200 schools up and down New Zealand you will always be able to find some problem as you could have on any given day with the old system as well, that's just life. But I do expect to see dramatic improvement, where on-time deliveries is the norm with very few exceptions," he said.
Barnes said he believed the programme began too early and said "they were delivering a generic meal to everybody and that's the result of it, which is not satisfactory".
"I don't have confidence at this stage that all the meat they're going to give us is halal so those students will be disadvantaged."
Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Barnes said he texted the school community to tell them that the glitch had occurred "and so in the meantime if they'd like to supply their own meals for their students until we have confidence of what we're getting".
Massey Primary School had 440 meals delivered but about 200 were returned uneaten, he said.
Those who did not eat the meals said they did not like them, he said.
Seymour rejected the idea that the new programme worsened food waste.
"There were also significant problems with wastage in the past so none of this is new," Seymour said.
"We have an expectation that for about 25 percent of students we will deliver hot meals to school. This year, we're doing that in a way that saves money and expands eligibility to low-income students in early childhood education as well."
He said that 230,000 meals were being delivered and that no menu would get rave reviews from everyone.
"Equally, I was at Ōtāhuhu College this morning and this afternoon. I moved around the hall at lunchtime and asked what they thought," Seymour said.
"Some students did make comments like you've described, and some said they thought it was better than last year."
Barnes also said there was also an issue with portion sizes.
"We go from Year 1 to Year 8 and yet my Year 8 students are getting the same size portion as a Year 1 student."
The meals are sealed in microwave type containers and the little kids are not able to open them and even teachers were having to use scissors to pierce the seal, he said.
The meals were not a patch on the previous ones which were nutritious and most of them were eaten, he said.
Unlike the previous meals, these ones did not include any fresh vegetables or fruit, he said.
"I don't believe it's as nutritious as we used to get, or as nice as we used to get."
Seymour told Checkpoint they had maintained the nutritional value and volume from the previous programme.
On Thursday, some of his school's lunches were delivered up to 45 minutes late by which time the childrens' lunch hour had finished, Barnes said.
Barnes said a school near him was 30 meals short of what they had ordered and ended up having to buy pies for the children.
The minister in charge of the scheme needed to give it a close evaluation and look at the feedback from schools, he said.
"Get the people who are actually having to operate it at the chalk face together to talk about it."
Barnes said he was aware there would be some teething issues with the new programme.
"So let's give it a week, see what we can manage and then give it constructive feedback."
The people who transport the lunches did not take the waste away despite the fact that the school was supposed to get a skip bin for the lunch waste, but that had not turned up, he said.
'Easy to focus on the outliers': Seymour defends school lunch programme
Associate Health Minister David Seymour said he expected to see improvements in the revamped school lunch programme.
He apologised for what he called teething problems and told Checkpoint it was unfair to focus on the negatives, and that it was easy to focus on the outliers.
"It's fair to say there are a range of views," Seymour said.
"Altogether though I think the scheme is rolling out pretty well."
Seymour emphasised that one of the main goals of the programme was to save the taxpayers' money.
"I heard some of the commentary from the principals, and 'This is not good enough' and 'Were entitled' and 'We demand', you know, people can take that approach but the approach that I take is that we're in a country that has, this year, a $7 billion deficit.
Seymour said people will always find problems, but he did expect "dramatic improvement" in regard to delivery time in the future.
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