‘Inedible’ Nūhaka school lunches given to a pig called Crackles

• Nūhaka School principal Raelene McFarlane says the Government’s school lunch scheme meals are inedible.
• Most of the uneaten food is given to a local pig, Crackles, due to waste.
• McFarlane wants the old system back, but critics say the school should put some salt and pepper on them rather than waste them.

Nūhaka School says most of the Government’s new school lunches delivered to it are “inedible” and are being given to a local pig called Crackles instead.

But critics of the school say it should invest in some salt and pepper to make them tastier, rather than wasting them.

Principal of the roughly 100-pupil Hawke’s Bay school, Raelene McFarlane, says the lunches provided by Rocket Cafe in Mahia before the 2025 rollout were “absolutely brilliant”.

“We had local providers who were just absolutely incredible,” she said.

“Simple big meals in crock pots, and the system also allowed for a person to be at school and serve the kids the food.

“We got down to pretty much zero waste most days and kids coming back asking if they could have seconds.”

Nūhaka School students enjoying their school lunches in 2024. Photo / Raelene McFarlane

But in 2025, Compass Group New Zealand began the School Lunch Collective, which was awarded the $85 million annual school lunch contract last year as part of Associate Education Minister David Seymour’s Healthy School Lunches reform.

McFarlane said most meals had become unappealing and inedible since Compass took over because of issues when reheating.

“Somehow in the reheat process all the moisture disappears out of it,” she said.

“We have mince that is kind of crunchy and the peas and carrots are almost dried.

“There’s no sauce left at all in the meals and so the kids are eating ... butter chicken that has no sauce left in it [and] hardly any chicken. It’s just inedible.”

The butter chicken provided to Nūhaka School that had no sauce, a tablespoon of chicken, and dried carrots. Photo / Raelene McFarlane

A Mexican mince school lunch that was delivered to Nūhaka School that had heated sour cream on top of the meal. Photo / Raelene McFarlane

McFarlane said her students were eating the fruit provided by the school lunch scheme “like crazy”, but not the hot food.

Lunchtimes at Nūhaka School now involved teachers trying to make each student at least try the meal before tossing it, she said.

“We feel like the lunch police.

“I’m a taxpayer too, all of my team are and my community ... we don’t like waste. But you can’t force-feed kids’ food that [you] wouldn’t dish up myself.”

Nūhaka School must return the meal containers each day to Compass as part of the contract, but must take care of leftovers and other rubbish themselves.

This had led to Crackles the pig eating most of the lunches, she said.

McFarlane said she would prefer to give leftovers to hungry families.

“The lunches are reheated. We can’t even send the lunch packs that aren’t eaten home with families,” she said.

“What’s being provided is such a backwards step from where we were and that’s where the heartbreak is.”

Currently, the school is paying for bread and spreads to make the kids sandwiches when meals go unfinished.

“Our plight is similar to many other schools in New Zealand and the truth sometimes is really hard but the system isn’t working,” McFarlane said.

“It would be great to be able to get back to the system that worked and to find a way to make that work again because our kids are worth it.”

Taxpayers’ Union communications officer Alex Emes called the uneaten lunches being fed to Crackles the pig “a misuse of taxpayer-funded food”.

“If flavour truly is the problem, add some salt and pepper,” he said.

“It would be much more affordable for New Zealand taxpayers for the school to invest in some basic condiments than buying all these meals just for unionised teachers to make a show of chucking them to the pigs.

“Properly means-testing this programme will ensure those kids in need are still getting the food they need, without taxpayers’ money going straight to the pig trough.”

Napier MP Katie Nimon, who has Nūhaka in her electorate, said David Seymour was responsible for the programme and he was working through the challenges.

“We have full confidence in him to deliver solutions,” she said.

On Tuesday, school lunch provider Libelle Group went into liquidation. Seymour, in charge of the programme, said he saw the development as potentially being “very good” in the long-term, once “sensitive” processes had been completed.

He had “clearly not” been happy with some of the service from the provider.

Last week Prime Minister Christopher Luxon hit out at parents unhappy about the new school lunches, saying they should just “go make a Marmite sandwich and put an apple in the bag”.

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and spent the last 15 years working in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier. He reports on all stories relevant to residents of the region.