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David Seymour’s new school lunches programme will include chicken katsu, butter chicken, lasagne, chicken pasta salad and wraps. 

The details of the Government’s cheaper school lunches are being revealed today. The lunches will be served in schools from Term 1 next year. 

Seymour announced in May he would re-do the free school lunches programme, known as Ka Ora, Ka Ako, saying it was too expensive and amounted to “wasteful spending.” 

The new programme would include no-frills, lunchbox basics and do away with foods he had described as “woke”, such as sushi. 

Lunches that will be served as part of the school lunch programme on display. Photo / Julia Gabel 

At the time, Seymour, who is Associate Education Minister, said: “Students will receive nutritious food that they want to eat. It will be made up of the sorts of food items thousands of mums and dads put into lunch boxes every day for their kids – forget quinoa, couscous, and hummus, it will be more like sandwiches and fruit.” 

Ka Ora, Ka Ako was launched by Labour in 2019 and today feeds about 235,000 students at schools and kura facing some of the greatest socio-economic barriers. 

The previous Labour Government had allocated $323.4 million for this year but it had not been funded beyond that. This Government has allocated $478m in funding keep the scheme going until the end of 2026. 

Seymour claimed if his scheme had been used for school lunches since the start of the programme, it would have saved $861 million. 

Today, options under the redesigned programme have been revealed and butter chicken curry, chicken katsu, lasagne, chicken pasta salad are on the menu. 

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Seymour said he has been able to save $130m annually with the new lunches which will cost $3 each. 

Options for the school lunches programmes on display. Photo / Mark Mitchell 

Lunches cost up to $8.68 per student under the previous Government, he said. 

“The programme will deliver nutritious hot and cold meals, such as butter chicken curry, chicken katsu, lasagne, chicken pasta salad and wraps. 

“All students in year 0 to 8 will receive the same sized meals (240 grams) and older students will receive larger lunches (at least 300g) – which will include additional items such as fruit, yoghurt or muesli bars.” 

Seymour said the new programme used 17 suppliers, including Gilmours, Foodstuffs, Watties and Hellers. 

“Some suppliers in the existing programme will be affected and I appreciate this will be tough.” 

A spread of fresh fruit, brownies and yoghurt as an example of what would be included in the school lunch programme. Photo / Mark Mitchell 

He said schools who had receive their lunches on the external model would continue to receive a variety of hot and cold meals, delivered daily. 

The waste from the lunches would be taken off the schools’ hands each day. 

Schools using the internal and iwi/hapū model would have access to a range of Government negotiated wholesale ingredients and could continue to prepare meals internally. These schools would receive a slight increase ($4 per meal) in per student funding to continue to employ people to prepare the meals, Seymour said. 

“We have embraced commercial expertise, used government buying power, and generated supply chain efficiencies to realise over $130m of annual cost savings, even more than anticipated in Budget 2024. 

“Every student receiving a school lunch today will continue to do so from day one of Term 1 next year.” 

All schools in the programme, which is more than 1000, would soon be contacted by the Ministry of Education to discuss the changes. 

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.