It’s out with quinoa and hummus and in with sandwiches and other lunchbox basics as Associate Education Minister David Seymour aims to save about $107 million a year with a new no-frills school lunches programme. 

Seymour announced today that the school lunches programme would get $478m in the Budget – a top-up in funding to keep it going for the next two years. He has also announced that it will be extended to some low-decile early childhood education services. 

The Government will review the programme before making decisions on its longer-term future. 

In the meantime, primary schools can continue to use the model they currently use, but there will be changes for high schools as part of a bid to save $107m, some of which will be used to fund the ECE rollout.  

The Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunches programme was launched by Labour in 2019 and today feeds about 235,000 students at schools and kura facing some of the greatest socio-economic barriers. The Labour Government had allocated $323.4m for this year but it had not been funded beyond that.  

Questions over the future of Ka Ora, Ka Ako were raised when Seymour was given ministerial responsibility over the policy. Seymour attacked the programme during the election campaign, describing it as “wasteful” spending and urging National to abandon it if they got into power. 

David Seymour has announced $478 million in funding to keep the school lunches programme going until the end of 2026. Photo / Mark Mitchell 

Today’s announcement provides a reprieve with $478m to be allocated in the Budget to keep the scheme going until the end of 2026, but with some changes to the way it operates. 

For the rest of the year, the programme would remain as it was with all contracts and commitments in place. From next year, a new alternative provision model will be established to feed students in years 7 and above and shave money off the cost. There will be no change in the way the programme operates for primary school students. 

“The alternate provision model will use the government’s significant buying power to save money on food, give schools more flexibility on what they provide, and significantly reduce wastage,” Seymour said. 

“Students will receive nutritious food that they want to eat. It will be made up of the sorts of food items thousands of mums and dads put into lunch boxes every day for their kids – forget quinoa, couscous, and hummus, it will be more like sandwiches and fruit.” 

Seymour said while the top-up funding was in place in 2025 and 2026, a full redesign of the programme would be undertaken based on commercial experience, data, and evidence. 

Seymour also announced today that $4m from the money saved would fund a new food programme for children at low-equity, not-for-profit, community-based early childhood centres. 

It would feed up to 10,000 children, he said. 

“I am pleased to announce there will be a new targeted programme to provide food to 10,000 2-to-5-year-olds who attend low-equity, not-for-profit, community-based early learning services, funded using the cost savings found in the lunch programme,” he said. 

“The first 1000 days are key to a child’s development. I am proud this Government can innovate to help even more children who need it.” 

Before today, Seymour had been clear the programme needed to reduce costs. In May, he told Te Ao Māori News “smarter and cheaper” ways to fund the programme were needed.  

“What we are going to do is cut expenditure elsewhere, put money into the school lunch programme and then do it better, smarter and cheaper.”  

NZME’s BusinessDesk reported at the time that this “smarter and cheaper” version would possibly include packaged foods such as tinned fruit, muesli bars, bread and canned beans. 

This article was originally published on the NZ Herald here.