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By John Gerritsen of 

With its main food manufacturer, Libelle, in liquidation, the School Lunch Collective this week turned to Australia to ensure it had enough meals.

Meanwhile, the Government insists the collective will continue to supply the 466 schools covered by its contract on time and in full.

Wednesday’s menu for most schools covered by the collective was individually packaged meals from Australia – mostly beef lasagne but three-cheese macaroni for some.

Kaitao Intermediate staff described the lasagne as four sheets of pasta with a little bit of sauce and told RNZ the meal did not go down well with the school’s pupils.

“Yeah, nah,” said a staff member who tried the meal.

The Rotorua school’s principal Phil Palfrey said the meals were at least on time – the school had been warned they would be 90 minutes late.

Photo / RNZ / Marika Khabazi

The collective said it sourced the Australian meals due to a manufacturing shortfall.

That’s in the same week Libelle, which made 125,000 meals a day for the collective, went into liquidation.

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Compass, which holds the contract, had said it would ensure Libelle’s staff were paid and its kitchens kept running.

Today, liquidator Deloitte confirmed that Compass would also ensure Libelle’s school tuck shops, which were separate from the free school lunch contract, stayed open.

Deloitte also said it expected to publish a report on Tuesday or Wednesday next week.

Earlier today, Principals Federation president Leanne Otene said the Associate Education Minister David Seymour told her on Monday that changing providers was possible.

However, Seymour later told RNZ the Government is not considering changing providers.

He said there was a delicate balance between Compass and Libelle and its former staff and creditors, but he was expecting no disruption to the School Lunch Collective’s service.

Seymour said last year’s procurement process did not raise red flags about Libelle’s viability.

The Office of the Auditor-General confirmed it had received correspondence about aspects of the school lunch programme and was considering whether to carry out an inquiry.

Meanwhile, also in Australia, the architect of Tasmania’s school lunch programme believes cost should not be the sole focus when it comes to feeding students.

Over a quarter of the 170 government schools in Tasmania are part of the lunch programme, which has been going since 2022 and is paid for by the state government.

Participating schools must commit at least 20 minutes to a sit-down lunch, where the kids also learn about nutrition and where their food comes from.

The person behind the programme, Julie Dunbabin, travelled around the globe researching what works, and visited Europe, Japan and the US.

“What we’re serving is, a seasonal menu,” she told Checkpoint. “We’ve worked out what is popular with children, so things like butter chicken, pasta bolognese, cottage pie, lasagne.”

She said meals cost about A$6.50 ($7.16) per head, which is more than twice what New Zealand has budgeted for – $3.

Dunbabin said costs are expected to rise, which covers procuring, making and transporting the food, as well as the cost of chefs.

“I suppose it depends how you’re sourcing the food. We’re in Tassie, we’re able to source mainly Tasmanian produce,” she said.

“We’re actually looking at a seasonal menu. So, at the moment, we’ve got masses of tomatoes and zucchinis, corn.

“So, we’re using those sorts of ingredients that are in, easy supply to make the meals as affordable as we can.”

Dunbabin said their students are developing their taste buds through their programme, and more importantly, it’s about the 20 minutes they sit together and eat.

“What parents are telling us is that their children are trying these foods because they’re sitting in a fairly unthreatening way with their peers and just seeing how they eat, what they eat,” she said.

She said teachers are finding is that the children are learning still because they’re learning to eat off plates or bowls and using knives and forks, but they’re talking about the food.

“They’re finding out where the food’s come from. And so, the 20 minutes is actually it’s a relaxed time, but it is still a learning time, and they do often sit with their teachers...there’s a different dynamic around food,” she said.

As a result, Dunbabin said they’re seeing some children come to school on lunch days and not on other days.

Dunbabin said cost should not be the primary driver when it comes to any school lunch programme, and rather, it should be about nutritious food and the experience of enjoying their meal together.

- RNZ