Hundreds of school lunches going uneaten: ‘It’s pretty bad, I hate it’

By Louise Ternouth and Ellen O’Dwyer of RNZ

Another day, another Pita Pit delivery at Massey Primary School in West Auckland.

“That was exciting the first day it turned up for our students, but I think naturally none of us eat the same thing for lunch seven days in a row, the novelty is wearing off,” said school administrator Karen.

It was supposed to be a temporary stop-gap while the Government got on top of its revamped school lunch programme but today fed-up students had had enough and over 350 meals were left untouched.

It is her job to liaise with the School Lunch Collective, the organisation in charge of the revamped government scheme, but she and principal Bruce Barnes are not having much luck.

“The only communication we have is with a truck driver who tells us ‘I’m coming the next day'.”

Lunches left over at the end of the day at Massey Primary. Photo / Louise Ternouth, RNZ

RNZ’s Checkpoint is at Massey Primary School as the Pita Pit delivery van pulls up for the seventh morning in a row at 9.30am. This time – for the first time – there is a mix of chicken and beef wraps.

Receptionist Patricia spends two hours sorting the 517 lunches into containers for each class.

Since the start of the school year, Massey Primary has complained to the Ministry of Education about finding ham in meals for its 50 halal students that they cannot eat. First it was ham sandwiches and then mac and cheese with ham.

“We are then forced to go out and purchase pizzas for the students. Now, we don’t mind doing that and we pay for that, but it would be nice to get some reimbursement.

“We’ve spent over $700 so far and no reimbursement, in sight and no method of getting the money back.”

Barnes said there is no longer a fresh component in the new lunch scheme and the “one size fits all” wrap is not fit for growing youngsters aged 5 to 13.

Massey Primary principal Bruce Barnes holding photos of some of the lunches received under the new school lunch programme. Photo / Louise Ternouth, RNZ

Like Barnes, Karen said she has given up trying to complain to the School Lunch Collective.

“That hotline is obviously so hot that they’re too busy to answer.”

Once the food is delivered, receptionist Patricia sorts it into containers for each classroom.

At 12.30pm she pushes a trolley around the school’s 22 classrooms delivering the wraps.

Today they are technically seven lunches short.

But the uptake is very low, and wastage is high.

Some Year 8 students told Checkpoint they are sick of the same thing for the past week.

“I don’t really like the lunch, it’s pretty bad, I hate it,” said one student.

Another said they prefer hot lunches.

When asked what they would eat instead of the lunch, one student said, “oxygen, I’d prefer not eating than eating something over and over again”.

Receptionist Patricia delivering lunches at Massey Primary School. Photo / Louise Ternouth, RNZ

One Year 8 student said the portions could be bigger for them.

“Because we’re the oldest in the school so we should eat more.”

Many prefer the lunches they got last year.

“I’ll eat anything just as long as you guys don’t redo it.

“Brownies, mac and cheese, chicken curry, chicken katsu, all the good lunches back then.”

At lunchtime, the kids were far more interested in queuing up to buy an ice block for $1 than the wraps.

By the end of lunchtime, the containers are still stacked full, with 370 wraps left over. Only 29% have been eaten.

Under the new school lunches scheme, the school’s caretaker and Patricia are spending up to four hours in total sorting, delivering and cleaning up the lunches, something that used to be totally taken care of.

They have been given funding by the Ministry of Education to hire someone to help but only for two and a half hours and they have only been given funding for two terms so far.

The PR agency for the Lunch Collective said as of last week, 10,000 Pita Pit meals would be delivered to Auckland schools each week. It said the cost of those meals is commercially sensitive.

But all this is news to Barnes.

“We heard the other day that these people have got a $6 million bonus for meeting their KPIs. What a load of nonsense, they haven’t met their KPIs.

“They’re not even delivering the meals to us.”

Checkpoint's repeated requests to speak with the Lunch Collective’s Paul Harvey have been declined.

The offer for him to appear on the programme remains open.

Many of the lunches have been returned. Photo / Louise Ternouth, RNZ

Meanwhile, an Auckland school principal wants the man responsible for reforming the school lunch programme - Associate Education Minister David Seymour - to come to her school and see the sub-standard food they are getting.

Lincoln Heights Primary School principal Leisha Byrnes said not only are the meals terrible, but they have had butter chicken delivered 10 days out of 15.

She told Checkpoint there’s no performance management and no one is being held to account.

Byrnes said the food wastage is horrific.

Whangārei school receives burnt, ‘inedible’ food

The principal of a Whangārei school said she had to order hundreds of pizzas for her students because those provided by the school lunch programme were unsafe to eat and “inedible”.

Whangārei Intermediate principal Hayley Read said the school only received half of the required meals on Friday, and the spaghetti and meatballs arrived burnt, with seals of the packaging peeling off.

This photo shows the lunches Whangārei Intermediate received with their packaging already coming off and burnt. Photo / Supplied via RNZ

She said the delivery from the School Lunch Collective arrived 30 minutes late.

“There were about seven of us trying to dish out these meals, and as we were doing it we could see ‘oh my gosh it’s burnt, and it’s unsealed'.

“It’s pretty shocking.”

She said a regional adviser told staff it was unsafe to serve meals that had opened, and advised the school to order pizza.

“They are not actual lids, they are just cellophaned on, the next container that sat on top would have gone straight into the food, and that just continued its pattern.

“It was totally inedible, it was burnt.”

Read said Whangārei Intermediate’s school roll is 540 students, so she ordered about 200 pizzas for the students, which cost about $1600, which she will invoice to the Ministry of Education.

“We could have just not fed them and gone ‘well – bad luck’, but as we know some kids literally rely on this food.

“[There are] others that could have possibly just coped. But we do know, in our communities, this is it. This is probably for the weekend.”

Kamo Intermediate principal Kim Sloane said their school had only received half of their order on Friday too, which meant staff members had to go to the local bakery to buy sandwiches for those who missed out.

“I’ve got to say today was very stressful, especially for the DP who is responsible for the lunches because we’ve got kids who are hungry.”

She said the new lunch model hadn’t been too bad for the school, and this was about the third time the order was either late, or had only delivered half.

“I would say the kids aren’t enjoying them – a lot of the times they’re leaving the lunches, there’s a lot of wastage.”

She said the school had employed another staff member for a few hours a day to help facilitate the lunch programme, but when there were problems it added workload and stress to the school.

The revamped School Lunch Collective programme has come under fire since it was rolled out at the beginning of the school year.

Aat the time the programme was announced the Government said it would cost $107 million less than the previous programme, and the lunches would be funded at $3 per student.

Principals have reported halal meals containing ham, and nearly a third of schools receiving the lunches have contacted the Ministry of Education with queries and complaints.

Read said the school previously used Subway and Pita Pit as providers for the previous programme, and these had been more popular with the students.

She said the quality had diminished under the new model.

“I don’t think adults would eat the food, so I don’t know why kids are expected to.”

In a statement the School Lunch Collective’s Paul Harvey apologised to the school.

“The School Lunch Collective apologises to the students and teachers at Whangarei Intermediate for the issues with delivery today and that the meals did not meet our standards.

“A delivery error meant only half the meals were delivered to the school. This has been subsequently addressed.”

The Ministry of Education’s leader of operations and integration, Sean Teddy, said the School Lunch Collective was investigating the issue, which related to “a quality control issue with the meal packaging”.

“The focus of the programme is to make sure every student receives a nutritious and enjoyable meal.

“In any situation where students have not received a palatable lunch, schools and kura can purchase food items for their students, the cost of which will be reimbursed.

“We thank the school for responding quickly and finding an alternative meal for their students.”

Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.