“We respectfully declined, saying the lack of ākonga [student] uptake had more to do with the quality of the food than the lack of need.”

Haeata Community Campus’s lunch allocation has been cut by 80 meals. Photo / George Heard

Kalah Blair, the mother of a student at Haeata Community Campus, told the Heraldher daughter went to collect her lunch as usual on Monday, only to discover there were none left.

“There’s supposed to be enough meals for every student, so to have them miss out is quite disturbing,” Blair said.

“There’s just so much rigmarole and now they’re cutting the amount of food that they’re giving out.

“They’re too hot, they’re too cold, there’s not enough.”

Andrea Williams, Ministry of Educationgroup general manager, national services and programmes said schools are responsible for regularly reviewing meal numbers to make sure they align with demand and the number of students attending school each day.

“There are a small number of schools across the programme reporting high surplus and have yet to reduce meal orders,” Williams said.

“Order numbers are normally adjusted a week in advance and we actively work with suppliers and schools to right-size meal orders and find more meals that students like to eat.

“We work closely with schools and meals providers to trial new meals with students and adjust menus based on feedback received, including food quality.”

Williams said there are many reasons why meal numbers can change, such as teacher-only days, attendance fluctuation, a school event , students bringing lunches/snacks from home, or a particular meal or component, eg vegetables, is not popular.

“We know it is difficult to please all 240,000 students receiving a lunch every day and what is popular at one school may have a different result at another school – even in the same region,” she said.

Williams said for a few schools, including Haeata Community Campus, they had taken the “unusual step” of adjusting the maximum lunch order (MLO) with the supplier directly.

“The MLO will always allow for additional students to have a lunch and meal numbers can be adjusted up or down, as required,” she said.

Williams said throughout 2026, Haeata Community Campus was ordering around 480 meals per day.

“This is despite average attendance this year being 11% lower than the number of meals ordered, with only 71% of available meals being eaten by students who were present at school,” she said.

“From Term 3, the maximum order number was reduced by 80 meals to 400 per day, which still allows for additional meals to be made available for hungry students.”

“We are pleased to hear that the first meal of Term 3 was well received by students at Haeata and surplus negligible.

“In comparison, surplus from lunch today (day two, Term 3) was above the 10% target. We expect schools to work with suppliers to adjust meal numbers based on expected demand fluctuations that can occur.

“We work within the programme budget and funding saved from making sure meal orders are in line with school’s requirements, are reinvested back into the programme either by inviting newly eligible schools or to support meal providers with inflation pressures and their ability to add more variety to a menu.

“In 2026, there have so far been over 20 million meals delivered to students, and we are committed that every student who needs a lunch, gets one.”

The Ministry of Education is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the school lunch programme, a spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added the ministry is not required to inform the Minister’s office before reducing the number of meals at individual schools.

Associate Education Minister David Seymour said allocating meals based on attendance is “common sense”.

“When surplus is high, the media attack the programme. When the programme adopts a commonsense change to bring surplus down, the media attack that,” Seymour said.

“If students aren’t at school, they can’t eat the lunches.”

“We’re delivering a programme to deliver for students and respects the taxpayer.

“These are the sorts of changes we’ve made to meet those goals, and which have saved the taxpayer $360 million.”

Haeata Community Campus mouldy lunches

Haeata Community Campus came into the spotlight at the end of last year after mouldy school lunches were served at the school.

The Ministry for Primary Industries earlier concluded the contaminated lunch food served to students at Haeata Community Campus was due to “human error” and likely left out for days.

The lunches served at Haeata Community Campus were covered in a thick layer of mould.

New Zealand Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle said at the time the “weight of evidence suggests” staff members at Haeata Community Campus mistakenly distributed the contaminated food.

Principal Peggy Burrows then rejected claims by senior officials, including Arbuckle, that it was her school’s fault.

She said she was “dismayed that such comments could be made by senior officials when the Food Safety Authority investigation is incomplete”.

Associate Education Minister David Seymour said at the time “a week of drama” could have been avoided had Burrows waited for the investigation, rather than going public.

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour (left) and Haeata Community Campus principal Peggy Burrows were at odds over the cause of mould on school lunches.

Seymour told Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive in December 2025 that the school should have “kept an open mind” so he did not have to spend a week talking about “what happened to 20 lunches”.

“I guess people might start to ask themselves, ‘Look, this whole saga, it was unreasonable to have a principal who was out in the media for a week, when in reality, Food Safety New Zealand completed the assessment within 10 days, which is lightning speed for most things that happen in government’.

“And if they were just open about what might have been the possibility, we could have waited till now, we could have saved a week of drama.”