The revised Ka Ora Ka Ako healthy school lunches programme debuted in schools across New Zealand at the start of the year.
At a cost of $3 per student, the government is expecting to save about $130 million with the delivery of the new programme to more than 240,000 students from about 1000 schools.
The old programme cost $8.68 per student.
Bathgate Park School principal Katrina Robertson said the school had a large uptake — 113 of 138 pupils on its roll had signed up for the lunches.
Ms Robertson said the new programme was off to a positive start.
She said the new lunches were "not better, not worse" than the ones provided last year.
"They look different than the lunches we’ve had before, so that takes getting used to in the initial phases."
Bathgate had an issue on the first day of the programme when a glitch in the system resulted in the school not receiving any lunches.
However, aside from the initial "teething issues" the programme had been well delivered, Mrs Robertson said.
"As it’s gone along, it has gone better and better."
The initial confusion about which lunches served those with dietary requirements had also been resolved by the third day of service.
Mrs Robertson said the communication from the supplier had been good.
She said as part of the new programme staff had to divvy up and distribute the lunches whereas the former supplier would provide the lunches already allotted to different classes.
The school was also responsible for disposing of the food waste and the new suppliers took the empty containers back.
Unopened or leftover lunches were available for the children to take home at the end of the day.
Year 7 pupil Taelyn Codling, 11, said he thought the vegetarian lunches were "yum" and he was happy there were hot lunches on the menu.
"If I had to compare some of them, sometimes these ones would win and sometimes the [old] ones would win."
Classmate Kora Mason, 11, said if the new lunches included milk then they would get a big thumbs up.
