Associate Education Minister David Seymour. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
A Palmerston North primary school wants to change school lunch providers after a child bit into a hard piece of plastic in their lunch.
The school has been receiving meals from Libelle and then Compass since the free lunch programme was introduced under Labour. Compass is now the main supplier for the coalition's revamped programme.
On Wednesday, a 10-year-old girl bit down on a piece of perspex plastic in a provided lunch, The Post reported.
Milson School principal Tracy Thorn told Midday Report it was fortunate the girl did not crack any teeth.
"She does still have quite a sore jaw so we are keeping an eye on that, as are her whanau."
Thorn said the school was fed up with the poor quality of the food after ongoing issues with the programme going back to last year. They included rotten fruit, not enough food and even a cockroach in the bottom of a delivery box.
"We've had lunches that have been opened," she said. "We've had children with allergies and those things have been included in their lunches."
A spokesperson for the School Lunch Collective said it contacted the school immediately after being notified of the incident so it could "take immediate action".
"All associated meals are on hold and we informed New Zealand Food Safety, which will work to determine where the foreign matter came from and what needs to be put in place to prevent this happening again."
The collective had zero tolerance for any risks created with its meals and was taking it extremely seriously, the spokesperson said.
"We sincerely apologise for any concern this has created."
Thorn said her school wanted to switch to the nearby Freyberg High School, which makes its own lunches, but shad been told that was not allowed.
"We tried to move to them to keep it local… I contacted the senior advisor for supplier partnerships and we were given a 'no'."
A recent analysis found school lunches are failing nutrition standards and giving students only half the energy they should
Doctors and researchers at the Public Health Communication Centre analysed the nutritional value of the School Lunch Collective meals which were brought in as a cost-saving scheme by the government this year. They found the meals were falling well short of expected energy requirements.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
