KEY POINTS:
Most schools will not meet Government standards for healthy tuckshop menus when new nutrition guidelines start in three weeks, the Green Party predicts.
The party has completed its third school food survey, and found more than 60 per cent of schools surveyed still had tuckshop menus dominated by pies and cakes, rather than the fruit and salads recommended under guidelines which will come into effect on June 1.
"Either schools simply aren't aware and haven't caught up with the news that they have got to comply with new regulations, or one would have to conclude there was a lack of will," said Green MP Susan Kedgley.
"The underlying problem seems to be that many canteens are run by outside businesses and it's obviously easier and more profitable to shove a frozen pie in a microwave than it is to make a healthy salad or a filled roll."
The Greens surveyed 50 primary and secondary schools around the country. It found the sale of pies, hotdogs and chips was down 14 per cent, and that 20 per cent fewer schools sold cake and chocolate.
But more than half still had pies and cake as a staple part of their menus.
"I was extremely surprised by the results," Ms Kedgley said.
"With all the guidelines having gone out and all the debate around this issue, I was expecting to see a major shift. There has been a shift ... but for many schools pies and sausage rolls are still daily fare."
Despite the small size of the Greens' survey, other information suggested the findings would apply to most schools, Ms Kedgley believed.
From June 1, the Food and Nutrition for Healthy Confident Kids guidelines will come into effect, and become part of the national administrative guidelines for schools.
Schools can implement the guidelines to suit themselves, but it is envisaged that "junk foods" will be phased out of tuckshop menus.
Pies, sausage sizzles and fundraising chocolate will not disappear, but be relegated to being occasional foods rather than staples.
Principals Federation head Ernie Buutveld believed companies which ran school tuckshops might be ignorant of the impending guidelines.
"There is probably sufficient help [for schools] out there. The difficulty I think for schools in making up the difference between the standards and where they are is that there are some significant players with whom they work, ie suppliers. They have structures they have had in place historically and maybe they simply need more time to make the change."
Some communities were also still having the debate about what was healthy food and what was not, Mr Buutveld said.
He believed that schools were generally aware of the guidelines, and many had been planning for them since they were announced last year.
In some schools it had not been an issue because they were not in a position where they supply lunches.
Large city schools which were in the business of supplying food to students were already well down the track to meeting the new guidelines.
SCHOOL FOOD
* 64 per cent of schools surveyed sell biscuits and cakes.
* 62 per cent sell pies. In almost one-third of those schools, pies were cheaper than filled rolls or sandwiches.
* 40 per cent do not sell fruit and 62 per cent do not sell yoghurt.
* 14 per cent did not offer sandwiches or rolls.
