David Seymour responds to school lunch programme controversy

When asked whether the School Collective were going to be sacked over the controversial revised school lunch programme, Associate Education Minister David Seymour said no.

"I think we have got to have a bit of a sober look at the situation."

Seymour told Checkpoint there were schools that said the current school lunch programme was better than the old one.

He would not give the school names for privacy reasons.

He said the old programme having virtually zero waste was "demonstrably untrue."

"There's no reason to believe that the wastage is different, of course when we have data, as the programme becomes established, we will be able to make that comparison.

"That data is not available yet, we hope to release it soon... probably be released within the next couple of weeks."

Seymour added at "some point we need to have a reality check here".

"These are free meals being paid by the tax payer, they are very good according to many of the people receiving them.

"There have been some challenges - which we have a track record of overcoming - and at some point, you've got to have reference to the other 75 percent of parents paying for their kids lunches."

But earlier, Labour's deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said Seymour should be sacked for delivering a revised school lunch programme that is a shambles.

Sepuloni calls out Seymour

Sepuloni, who is also the MP for Kelston, was at Kelston Boys' High School in Auckland during lunch time on Wednesday.

More than 800 students were lined up outside the main building to collect their school lunches.

About six staff members, including the principal Adeline Blair, and several students were helping distribute Pita Pit meals - sub-contracted by the government provider Compass.

Blair said the meal - a small container of Teriyaki Chicken and veggies, a brownie and choice of an apple or a plum was not enough for the boys, but it was better than what they had been getting from provider Compass earlier in the year.

"We had a few days of no meals."

Blair said one of her teachers commented meals did not look not fit for consumption.

"[She said] 'it was like somebody chewed and spat it back into the into the container'. It was not the most appealing to the eye."

"The containers are extremely hot to hold because they have been reheated to a certain level 'it didn't taste of anything', that's what the boys said."

She said there was one day when special dietary requirements were not catered for.

"We had a young man who was obviously a halal consumer and he came up to us and said 'Miss Are there any halal meals?' And and I said 'I'm really sorry, but we have none'. And the look on his face just dropped because that was his meal for the day."

After several such complaints from schools all over the country, Compass sub-contracted to Pita Pit to supply the meals.

Blair said it takes up about 25 minutes to get through the students and the helpers usually end up skipping lunch themselves.

In previous years, Kelston Boys High School had their own provider and the meals were delivered to students in their classrooms.

The provider had also employed a person to help with the distribution.

She said they too had been disappointed with new lunch programme after seeing it at Kelston.

Sepuloni said Associate Minister of Education David Seymour needed to be sacked over this.

"I think Compass needs to be [sacked]. I think the Minister needs to be.

"He's the one that turned this programme upside down. It was working really well prior to David Seymour's intervention, but I will put on the record too that the primary Minister of Education is Erica Stanford, she needs to stand up, take over and fix this mess because clearly David Seymour is not capable of doing so."

In a statement, Seymour said the issue was being politicised.

"There will always be people who want to politicise an issue, but it is better to deal in facts."

"The revamped school lunch program will save $170 million dollars when it is extended to all schools. At the same time it achieved 100 per cent on time delivery yesterday, and many students and principals are praising the new meals as being better than the old.

"The budget we inherited from Labour left no money for school lunches in the budget for 2025, we have found the money to make it work. It is not credible to say they are in favour of doubling the budget to receive the same result."

Compass is one of the three companies that make up the School Lunch Collective, which is responsible for running the scheme.

Compass Group boss Paul Harvey told Checkpoint on Wednesday it was "mission critical" to meet KPIs.

"We are going to listen we are going to learn we are going to work with our teams to ensure that the menus turn up in a way that they enjoy eating everyday," he said.

Harvey told Checkpoint, every day Compass was improving but it was "not where they want to be".

Not delivering on their promise

The Principals Federation national president Leanne Otene told Checkpoint schools had been patient for long enough.

"This has become a real distraction... [the kids] have been promised a healthy lunch and it hasn't been delivered on.

"This is half-way through the term, how long do you wait."

Otene said the food is now arriving in bulk instead of being organised by classrooms.

"Distributing accordingly takes time," she said.

"It was taking support workers two hours to sort out all the lunches to go out to classrooms and that was a school of about 600, so you know, this is unacceptable."

When asked what else teacher could be doing with that time, Otene had a list.

"They would be focusing on teaching and learning; they would be supporting children in classrooms; teachers are better to be focused on one hour of reading, writing and maths; they would be focusing on the two new curriculum areas that need to be implemented at this time of the year; they would not be worrying about what children need to be eating at their lunch break."

She said principals were also reporting more wastage then ever before.

"Having a hot lunch at the moment in Northland, kids don't want a hot lunch, they would want a salad roll and piece of fruit, something cold perhaps - they get butter chicken that doesn't look like butter chicken..."

She said supplying meals locally - which is what she said many schools wanted - would cost more than three dollars.

"We told him he couldn't do it for four or three dollars when the programme was first discussed, and in good faith, we went along and looked at the food that was going to be provided.

"We were told it had good nutritional value; we told there were nutritionists involved in making sure the food provided to students was going to meet the requirements; we were told that it was going to be substantial; that our young people were going to love it; that it was going to be equivalent if not better than the past programme.

"That has not happened, so they have not delivered on that promise. So obviously, three dollars does not get you a good school lunch," she said.

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