Greens fight to banish the pies - again

Allison Roe, 4-year-old Ruby Whitefoot, and Rob Hamill opt for fruit kebabs and mini muffins. Photo / Kenny Rodger

Former top athletes and health experts are backing the Greens' campaign to scratch cream buns and sausage rolls from the school menu.

Greens health spokeswoman Sue Kedgley yesterday started a petition to persuade the Government to yield to public pressure.

In effect, it asks for the re-introduction of the ban on regular sales of unhealthy food and drink in schools.

The new National-led Government revoked the ban in February.

New York marathon winner Allison Roe and transatlantic rower Rob Hamill, a Greens list candidate, spoke in support of the petition.

Mr Hamill attacked the idea of school food sales being about free choice.

"If it's about freedom of choice, why can't we sell cigarettes in schools? ... We know it's wrong.

"If we are putting crap food in the diets of kids, not only are they going to underperform, it's going to set a habit for life."

Ms Roe, a Health Sponsorship Council member, said Education Minister Anne Tolley's removal of the ban made no sense.

It was well-proven children needed healthy food to develop properly.

But Mrs Tolley said she would not review her decision. When meeting teachers and parents, she had received positive feedback and schools were doing a good job of promoting healthy food and drink to students.

Associate professor Robert Scragg, of the University of Auckland, is involved in a project partly aimed at improving the quality of food sold in high schools.

He said the initiative had made little progress until the last Government introduced the ban.

Ms Kedgley said schools were now reverting to the cheaper, easier option of selling unhealthy items such as pies, sausage rolls and cream donuts - foods which were routinely available before the regulation came into effect last year.

But one of the largest school food suppliers, Future Foods, said most schools, having made their menus healthier last year, were sticking with the changes.

"On the whole, the healthy choice stuff is being kept in schools, maybe alongside the odd bag of chips and snack items that might not have met the guidelines," said general manager Martyn Barlow.

Sales of cookies and other foods not permitted for regular sales had reduced under the changes last year but were offset by increases in healthier choices such as bread-based pie alternatives.

It was too soon since February to say what effect the reversal had had on sales. As well, the picture was complicated by the recession reducing school pupils' spending, especially in poorer areas.