Smarter healthy school lunches programme serves up $130m in savings

Education

Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the government has worked with businesses to transform the school lunch programme, delivering for children and saving for taxpayers.

"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," says Mr Seymour.

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

"By leveraging private sector expertise from companies like Compass Group, Gilmours, and over 17 food manufacturers and suppliers, we are setting a precedent for the government working with businesses to achieve better results.

"The programme will deliver nutritious hot and cold meals, such as butter chicken curry, chicken katsu, lasagne, chicken pasta salad and wraps. These meals will cost $3 each. 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."

"Under the Labour-led government, lunches cost up to $8.68 per student.

"If the previous government had set up the programme this way, over $800 million of taxpayer's funds would have been saved over the past five years. Some suppliers in the existing programme will be affected and I appreciate this will be tough. However, the emphasis of the programme is to ensure students get good meals at an affordable cost to the taxpayer.

"Schools who receive their lunches on the external model will continue to receive a variety of hot and cold meals, delivered daily. Schools using the internal and iwi/hapū model will have access to a range of government negotiated wholesale ingredients and can continue to prepare meals internally. These schools will receive a slight increase ($4 per meal) in per student funding to continue to employ people to prepare the meals.

"Instead of applying a different model for students year 7 and over, we have successfully negotiated a like for like solution for all student age groups in the programme. Composite schools (years 0-13) and full primary (years 0-8) will use this model from 2025 and contributing primary schools (year 0 - 6) from 2026.

"The government will also provide food for up to 10,000 two-to-five-year-olds who attend low-equity, community-based early learning services. This will be funded by some of the cost savings found in the lunch programme. I intend to make an announcement on this very shortly.

"I expect the programme will continue to evolve over time. But first and foremost, the collective, the Expert Advisory Group, the Ministry of Education and I are focused on a smooth transition for schools on day one of term 1 2025.

"I have met with our commercial partners, and they are committed to making this work for the children and the schools. I would like to thank the members of the Expert Advisory Group, the Ministry of Education, affected schools and suppliers for working together so hard, and effectively, to provide a fantastic solution for the kids."

Note to editors:

• Link to MoE website Programme Updates - Ka Ora, Ka Ako - Healthy School Lunches Programme (education.govt.nz)