Cheesed off: ‘On all levels, a disaster’

]An Otago principal is convinced prisoners are being fed better than her students, who have had to endure mac ’n’ cheese for several days straight.

East Otago High School principal Helen Newcombe said she was throwing away more lunches from the Healthy School Lunches Programme Ka Ora, Ka Ako than students were eating.

This comes as the new regime has been slammed nationally for delivering poor lunches since it was launched by Associate Education Minister David Seymour at the start of the term.

Two other Otago schools, both from Dunedin, said their pupils had also been fed mac ’n’ cheese for at least four days straight.

Ms Newcombe said students would look at the food and walk away.

"The mac and cheese smells so bad.

"When it gets delivered to the school office, the whole office just starts to stink."

She said it looked like a "thick pasty mess with a little bit of ham in it".

"This has got to be worse than what prisoners are fed.

"I just think on all levels, it’s a disaster."

When the mac ’n’ cheese was delivered on Friday — the fourth day in a row — the school decided to cook scones in the food technology room.

Ms Newcombe said the meals were supposed to be "nutritionally complete", but there was no fresh fruit, vegetables or even seasoning on them.

The government was saving money making the meals, but many of those meals were going to waste. Of the 190 meals the school received on Friday, only about 10 were eaten, leaving students hungry in the afternoon.

While some students were bringing their own lunches, many could not afford to.

"Some of them don’t even have breakfast before they come and for a lot of the kids this is the meal for them for the day."

She sent an email to her local MP, Miles Anderson, Mr Seymour and the Ministry of Education.

She had not received any response from Mr Seymour or the ministry.

The situation was much better last year when the meals were delivered by the local Palmerston Four Square supermarket.

Pupils at Green Island and Bathgate Park Schools had had mac ’n’ cheese for four days straight.

Green Island principal Aaron Warrington said the government had overpromised and under-delivered on the programme.

He said they were "scrambling" to get the food out and it showed that children were not the priority.

"I don’t care how much you like mac ’n’ cheese, you’re going to get bored of it after four days.

"It can’t keep going like this. The kids are not going to want them."

The ministry was unable to respond to questions by deadline.

mark.john@odt.co.nz