“This Government slashed school lunch funding and handed the job to a global corporation instead of supporting local suppliers—now kids are stuck with worse meals,” Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said.
“Their choice to prioritise cuts over proper nutrition for our kids is a disgrace.”
Parents and teachers have been sharing stories of inferior meals that kids could not eat, meals arriving hours after they were needed, and mislabelled packaging.
A Cabinet Paper in March 2024 informed the Government that changes to the school lunch programme would risk achievement, attendance, nutrition, and wellbeing of children, as well as having wider impacts on reducing child poverty. They made these changes anyway.
“Sadly, this was entirely predictable. Instead of investing in children’s nutrition and supporting local food suppliers, this government chose cost-cutting ahead of quality,” Jan Tinetti said.
“Proper nutrition is essential for kids to focus and learn. Rather than showing leadership and prioritising our kids’ wellbeing, Christopher Luxon followed David Seymour’s reckless advice and chose cuts over quality. As an educator, I have heard similar horror stories from my former colleagues, and I am deeply concerned that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
“Children should not have to suffer because of the Government’s poor choices,” Jan Tinetti said.
Seymour’s idea was always going to fail….he is ignorant… clueless.
He’s had 6 months or more to organize his much self-vaunted lunches into schools and he’s failed.
This is the guy who has been going around the country preaching to everyone that every hour of learning in a classroom must be accounted for and yet here we have 100s of children expecting to eat lunch at midday not receiving it ….thus their whole afternoon schedule being disrupted on an empty stomach.
The quality of food is not even close to what was being sourced and made by locals in their given areas.
If Seymour wanted to get more pupils back in the classroom, and learning, then he will inevitably fail with this hopelessly conceived and poorly executed policy.
The corporates do a better job??…what a load of rubbish that is!!
Another messy delivery of school lunches today.
Same as hospital meals, you never know when they’ll arrive and when they do, they look very unappealing.
If one has an allergy, it gets noted but no-one preparing the meals reads that note and sees that it’s adhered to.
Back to school lunches. Seymour says teething problems are inevitable. Why? They’ve had months to practise this. Months to make sure the ovens work, the deliveries are timely. They were told the initial examples didn’t look very nice but ignored that advice. Seymour doesn’t listen, he knows everything and pokes his nose in everywhere.
As Grant says the disruption to the afternoon’s teaching programme is unforgivable, given Seymour’s self-proclaimed confidence in the providers. He’s proved that corporatization/privatization doesn’t work efficiently.
There will be problems most days. Children will not benefit from the quality of the food nor the unreliable deliveries. There goes the big push for literacy and numeracy.
He’ll blame the schools, the teachers, the children, the left. Anyone but himself and his delusions.
He’s not an expert in children or teaching or learning and yet we have him dictating to us as if he has some special insight that no-one else has. We neither need him nor want him.
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