Damning report finds half of school lunches missed nutrition standards

Only 50% of the meals delivered by the new school lunch programme in 2025 complied with the Ministry of Education’s nutrition standards, according to a scathing report by the Auditor-General.

The parliamentary watchdog also took aim at inaccurate costings for the lunches, safety issues, contingency planning and their rollout.

The 50% nutrition figure for the School Lunch Collective’s meals was calculated by the Ministry of Education.

However, it was disputed by the collective, which said that in Term 3, 69% of the lunches complied with nutrition standards, and in Term 4 compliance was 75%.

The report delved into problems with the new, cheaper, school lunch programme.

It noted officials had raised concerns with the Ministry of Education, that its briefings and draft Cabinet papers “minimised the proposed model’s operational risks and implication” before it was rolled out.

Ministry staff “made it clear” to the Auditor-General that there were “tensions” within the Ministry team and the office of the Associate Education Minister David Seymour, who was driving the changes.

These tensions got so bad that the Ministry leadership “decided to limit further involvement to certain Ministry staff within the policy, procurement, and operations teams”.

The Ministry of Education reckons the new model saved about $134 million in 2025 and is on track to save $120m this year.

However, it concluded that while the cost of the programme had reduced, “if students are not eating or only partially eating meals, or if the meals are not nutritionally sound, the Programme might not be achieving all its intended outcomes”.

The Auditor-General, a parliamentary watchdog for Government spending, opened an inquiry into the lunches in 2025 after numerous complaints.

The report, which was tabled in Parliament today, noted suppliers of Labour’s previous school lunch programme complained after they felt the Ministry had ended their contracts at short notice, without proper communication.

However, the Auditor-General also received complaints from firms which tendered unsuccessfully to run the new programme.

The Auditor-General’s report validated some of these concerns, highlighting questionable procurement practices.

The Auditor-General found multiple instances of poor performance.

In Term 1 of 2025 the programme “was unable to meet its delivery targets on 22 of the 47 days measured”.

Crackles the Pig in happier times when Nūhaka School would donate their uneaten school lunches to its trough.

The School Lunch Collective, the consortium of suppliers contracted to deliver the lunches, received 51 complaints about the lunches in February 2025 alone.

Some complaints were dealt with relatively quickly, and were resolved within a day. Others took 260 working days to resolve.

The Auditor-General noted an already-publicised incident of a child sustaining burns, as meal packaging was not suitable for reheating in commercial ovens.

The Ministry told the Auditor-General those delays represented an “unprecedented increase” in the number of incidents, which reflect “significant structural and staffing changes” within the School Lunch Collective and school holidays affecting incident resolution.

Complaints over procurement - officials

The report was critical of the way the school lunch contract was procured.

The Ministry of Education developed a “pack and go” lunch model costing about $3 a meal. The cost was “caveated”, the report said and did not include delivery and distribution costs.

The Ministry raised concerns that the “proposed model might not meet students’ nutritional needs and would create operational complexity for schools running two different lunch models simultaneously (that is, separate lunch programmes for different age groups”.

The Ministry noted several other big concerns. It said it had not “tested the $3 a student cost with the market or thoroughly analysed the cost”.

Officials warned that capital investments made under the previous model, in which lunches were prepared locally, would have a lower return on investment.

Conversely, some schools, particularly those with larger rolls, might need additional funding for new equipment.

The new model had a greater role for school staff, adding work, and making them work in ways they were not trained for, which could result in lower compliance with food safety standards.

The $3 per lunch cost was diluted after the contract was awarded, as additional requirements for the lunches became clear.

Starting the second stage of the procurement process before finalising the design of the Alternative Provision Model led to concerns about fairness among suppliers.

The Auditor-General said there were “concerns about fairness among suppliers” – in particular, among those “who had withdrawn from the procurement after concluding they could not deliver all aspects of the Alternative Provision Model for the $3 cost”.