The programme delivers lunches to more than 1000 schools. Photo / Michael Craig
The programme delivers lunches to more than 1000 schools. Photo / Michael Craig
“Hidden veggie” butter chicken, Thai chicken curry and rice bean burritos could be on the menu for schoolkids from the start of Term 1 next year.
Budget 2024 provided $478 million for the healthy school lunches programme over the 2025 and 2026 school years. In early May, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced the Government’s intention for a “more efficient” lunches programme, with an aim to save around $107m a year.
“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,” Seymour said during the May announcement.
He has previously suggested sushi is an example of“woke” food.
Nine sample recipes are included in the Ministry of Education’s information pack for businesses interested in registering to provide healthy school lunches - including curries, pasta-based dishes, wraps, and sandwiches - for the 2025 rollout.
The Ministry of Education has provided interested parties with nine sample recipes.
Nine samples were developed and tested “based on information available via the current Healthy School Lunches programme as offering both affordability and palatability/appeal to learners”.
“These recipes have been evaluated to meet current nutritional standards,” the documents said.
The education ministry expects to create a library of 150 to 200 recipes, which will be updated each term on seasonality.
The documents state all meals are required to meet nutritional guidance, which as of 2022 suggests food should be prepared with and contain minimal saturated fat, salt and added sugar.
The 2022 nutrition standards document from the Ministry of Education, which is referenced in the new documents for parties interested in the school lunches programme, also includes samples of meals that meet the standards.
Option one is a ham and cheese sandwich, comprised of “wholegrain bread, sliced ham, reduced-fat cheese, mayonnaise, lettuce, cucumber,” and served with “a wholemeal apple muffin and carrot sticks”. Other examples include chilli con carne, couscous salad, Mexican-style tacos, and chicken wraps.
The 2022 samples of a winter menu include sweet and sour chicken, massaman curry, lasagne, a chicken sandwich and a tuna wrap.
New school lunches are set to be rolled out from the start of the first term in 2025.
Submissions from interested applicants wanting to deliver the programme close on Monday, August 26.
Registration of interest applications in the procurement process included examples of large-scale recipes for up to hundreds of students.
The Ministry of Education's registration of interest pack for procurement includes sample recipes for school lunches.
Lunch prices will be delivered at an average of $3 per learner. Procurement documents show that sum includes “all ingredients, wholesaler/distributor costs, meal provider lunch production costs, i.e. labour, kitchen costs, packaging, delivery to schools and waste and surplus removal/management”.
In a statement to NZME, Seymour said: “When I announced the improved programme in May I said there would likely be a change to foods like sandwiches and fruit to ensure taxpayers’ money was being spent wisely. These are still options, but initial modelling shows other meals could possibly be provided at less cost to taxpayers.
“An expert advisory group consisting of commercial and not-for-profit experts in procurement, logistics and contracting, as well as child welfare and nutrition, have been working hard to realise this vision,” he added.
Health Coalition Aotearoa co-chair and Professor Lisa Te Morenga was pleased to see hot meals on offer for children receiving school lunches.
In an interview, Te Morenga said if schoolkids receiving free lunches get much food at home, it is likely bread and noodles, rather than nutritonally-dense salads and curries.
She believed it was an “improvement” to see meals with protein and vegetables in them.
Te Morenga was sceptical the lunches would be delivered at the proposed cost of $3 per learner.
“It seems almost impossible to be able to make those sort of savings without actually cutting into the quality of the food.”
She suggested a single-supplier model could limit competition and may limit driving improvement.
Azaria Howell is a Wellington-based multimedia reporter with an eye across the region. She joined NZME in 2022 and has a keen interest in city council decisions, public service agency reform and transport.
