School lunch failures: Original contractors ready to offer alternatives

By John Gerritsen of RNZ

An organisation that lost school lunch contracts to the School Lunch Collective says it has been expecting the collective to fail and a group of food companies is poised to take over from them.

The Collective last year won a contract to provide free lunches to about 130,000 students in 466 schools, but this week one of its three members – Libelle Group – went into liquidation.

The Collective said Libelle Group provided 125,000 meals a day, but did not confirm whether it was the collective’s entire meal output.

John Prendergast from Trust House, a Wairarapa organisation that lost all but one of its 21 school lunch contracts to the collective, said he used to work as a liquidator and he was not surprised that Libelle had gone into liquidation.

He said a group of lunch suppliers had been working for several months on a plan to step in if the collective failed.

“We’ve had worries right from the start that this isn’t sustainable and I think the events of today give some credence to that view,” he said.

“Our understanding is there was only one supplier that said to the ministry they could do the provision for $3, every other supplier told the ministry it wasn’t feasible and sustainable to do it for $3 and so that’s why a group of us have been working on developing an alternate plan so that if an event like this happens the future of the programme isn’t at risk,” he said.

“This was a group of suppliers that we pulled together that have been concerned from the outset that we didn’t think this was a sustainable model. And so the real fear that we have had and still have to a degree is that the Government or some parts of the Government might say, well, this is clearly not working, we’re just gonna scrap the whole thing, and we didn’t want that position to be arrived at without there being a viable plan B ready to stand up.”

Prendergast said close to half of the 158 organisations that supplied lunches last year had been involved in discussion about an alternative and they could stand up nationwide coverage within a few weeks.

He said they would not be able to meet the Government’s $3 price point, but they could be 15-20% cheaper than the previous system which cost about $7-$8 a meal for older students.

Prendergast said the Education Ministry was aware of the group’s work.

‘We knew it wasn’t going to work'

Meanwhile, two Rotorua principals told RNZ it was time to dump the School Lunch Collective and return to the previous system.

Phil Palfrey from Kaitao Intermediate said the shift to the cheaper model was never going to work.

“It’s just another sign. We knew it wasn’t going to work and we told people it wouldn’t work and they should have really believed us.”

Palfrey said the shift to the School Lunch Collective had been a disaster and last Friday there was a lot of waste at his school.

He said the school was worried some students were not eating enough and he planned to survey them to find out.

Fred Whata from Rotorua Primary School said problems with the lunch scheme were a huge distraction for principals.

“It’s not cost-effective, the numbers are all wrong and this is just a great big farce that stops education in its tracks. We’re being distracted by it.”

The two principals said they were not sure what to expect from their school lunches today.

Assurances lunches won’t be disrupted

The School Lunch Collective said Compass Group would ensure Libelle’s staff were paid and its kitchens stayed open so its lunch provision continued.

Secondary Principals Association president Vaughan Couillault said he had been assured there would be no disruption to the supply of lunches from the Libelle liquidation.

He said there had been a huge shift in how the programme operates since the School Lunch Collective took over.

“But I don’t think everyone’s going to pack up sticks, and take everything home at this point. There’s still a lot of value that can be added for young ones that are experiencing food poverty across the country.

“This is a fairly major stumbling block, but I’m hoping it’s not one that finally sees the end of the programme.”

Couillault – also the principal of Papatoetoe High School – said now that logistics had been sorted out at his school, the lunches had been successful.

“Kids are enjoying the food and there’s very little waste at the end of the day.”

The school contracted their own provider previously, which he says was “seamless”, with “students as happy as they are now”.

“There’s more conversations to be had – and one of those conversations might well be, how can we sort of return to a little bit more like it used to be? $9 to $3 is quite a significant change in funding, which would have implications for exactly what service could be provided.”

He said it was time to roll up the sleeves and make the programme work.

- RNZ

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