- Students at a New Zealand middle school were served spoiled meals on Monday, Dec. 1
- New Zealand Food & Safety reported that the meals were most likely left out since a delivery on Thursday and mixed in with the fresh food on Monday
- At least 10 students went home with stomach pains, however no foodborne illnesses have been officially reported
A free school meal meant to support students at a Christchurch campus in New Zealand instead sparked a government investigation after several children were handed lunches that appeared visibly spoiled, including mince meat that had turned discolored and watery.
According to a 1News report, over 20 inedible meals were served on Monday, Dec. 1, at Haeata Community Campus, in Wainoni, New Zealand, which is one of the schools participating in New Zealand’s national lunch program.
The spoiled food packages, of meat and potato meals, were discovered when a staffer opened a meal container and spotted the contents had been broken down, according to the report. By then, some students had already eaten their servings, prompting the school to pull back the remaining trays and alert its lunch provider, School Lunch Collective.
Moldy school lunches at Haeata Community Campus.
1News
New Zealand Food Safety, the government agency overseeing food standards, moved quickly to review the complaint. Their assessment (following review of School Lunch Collective’s Christchurch kitchen and Haeata Community Campus), completed on Tuesday, pointed to a likely mix-up. Associate Education Minister David Seymour took to social media to share the resulting outcome of the investigation from the agency.
The investigation concluded that “it is more than likely that the affected meals at the school had been delivered the previous Thursday, remained at the school without refrigeration, and then were accidentally re-served to students along fresh meals delivered on Monday,” New Zealand Food Safety’s deputy director general Vincent Arbuckle told PEOPLE in a statement. “This would explain the deterioration of the meals.'”
He continued: “We note that on the day of the complaint there were 15 other schools that received meals from the same distribution centre and we received no other complaints. Our investigation continues.”
Principal Peggy Brown.
1News
At the school, administrators said they moved quickly to notify families and evaluate any potential health impacts.
Principal Peggy Brown spoke to 1News and noted that the food quality has been “poor,” but not to this extent. “It hasn’t been a happy experience using Campus’s provider, unfortunately,” said Brown, calling the service “infuriating,” adding. “We have a $56 million, brand-new, modern-built learning environment that has an industrial, commercial kitchen and café, and repeatedly we’re told we can’t provide the service ourselves.”
Attendance remained stable on Tuesday, and the school reported that families sought medical attention for any children who felt unwell. Brown said “fewer than 10” suffered stomach pains. As of writing, no official cases of foodborne illness were reported.
Seymour publicly backed the agency’s findings and emphasized the importance of verifying claims that could undermine confidence in a program serving thousands of children nationwide. He also criticized the school and the media’s handling of the situation, arguing that the immediate focus should have been on the students’ “learning and wellbeing, not to run a media campaign.”
Still, questions about how the mishandled lunches remained on-site — and who was responsible for the oversight — fueled debate between school leadership and government officials. While investigators said the timeline strongly suggested the older meals were left unrefrigerated on campus, the school disputed that conclusion, maintaining that no food was stored improperly.
PEOPLE reached out to the School Lunch Collective and Haeata Community Campus for comment.