School lunches: Students given ‘vegan’ meals containing beef mince

• A school lunch supplier apologised after New Plymouth students received ‘vegan’ meals containing beef mince.
• The School Lunch Collective said a processing error led to some lunches being mislabelled.
• Paul Harvey says additional steps have been implemented to prevent future errors.

A school lunch supplier is apologising after New Plymouth students were given “vegan” meals containing beef mince.

The School Lunch Collective says a processing error resulted in five “non-vegan” school lunches being mislabelled.

Jo Thorensen told the Herald her vegetarian Year 11 son came home from Spotswood College on Thursday with an unusual meal.

“It was savoury mince with mashed potato and vegetables, and it had his name on it and had ‘vegan meal’ written on the top,” she said.

“[The] ingredients were beef mince and other various meat products.”

While her son and his friends were “bemused”, Thorensen said two of the boy’s teachers were “horrified” at the mishap.

A student at Spotswood College in New Plymouth was given a "vegan" school lunch containing beef mince. Photo / Jo Thoresen

“I just opened it out of curiosity, and it smelled terrible, so I threw it in the compost. I don’t think it’s edible.”

Thorensen said she didn’t blame the school but thought the suppliers were “not even getting the basics right”.

“Are the people just not putting two and two together?

“You order a vegetarian meal, and then you’re just given a meat meal.”

The School Lunch Collective’s Paul Harvey told the Herald it apologised to the students at Spotswood College who received “non-vegan meals”.

Harvey said an error while processing the meals resulted in five lunches being mislabelled.

“Once notified of the error by the school, additional vegan meals were supplied the same day.”

Harvey said the School Lunch Collective has “put additional steps in place” to mitigate any future distributing errors.

Spotswood College has been contacted for comment.

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