The principal of a Christchurch school says it is wanting to get out of its contract with the Compass Group following several weeks of problems and "disappointing" service.
Leaders at Wainoni's Haeata Community Campus have said "enough is enough" with the Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy Schools Lunch programme, signalling their intent to request an exemption from the Associate Education Minister David Seymour to deliver lunches themselves.
The programme continues to be plagued by ongoing complaints from schools around the country over meal quality and service.
Last week it was confirmed Libelle Group, a major provider of school lunches, would sell its lunch operation to Compass Group NZ after it went into liquidation.
Haeata Community Campus principal Dr Peggy Burrows said the programme over the year's first term amounted to "seven weeks of disruption".
"It's a service that hasn't really met the aspirations of the programme," she said.
"It's had a really negative impact on our ability to deliver nutritious lunches for children in our school.
"If you compared it to last year, it doesn't really compare."
Last Friday, the school was delivered 600 meals that arrived "completely frozen".
"We were told 'just put them out to de-frost'," Burrows said.
"We only really had an hour to do that and where do you put 600 lunches to defrost?"
School staff were able to do this because of its purpose-built industrial kitchen, but it required several administration staff to be pulled off their regular duties.
Meals had also arrived at the school "too hot" for either pupils or staff to handle, a problem encountered at other schools around the country.
"Because they're vaccum-sealed, if you try to open them there's spillage problems," Burrows said.
"We've had incidents of students being hurt with steam burns.
"Staff are concerned that they're doing one job and they're being pulled away to work in the distribution of lunches, even though we have a person who is designated to do that."
"The programme has great merit and we do need the lunches.
"But the way it's being delivered at the moment isn't meeting our students' needs."
Last November, the Haeata board approved an application to the Ministry of Education to provide lunches at the school, Burrows said.
The ministry were initially in agreement but later declined the request a month later, with the school being told the Compass contract was "a done deal".
As part of the government's negotiations with Compass, it required a quota of schools within the programme to ensure it could be delivered at $3 per meal, Burrows said.
Exemptions won't be granted - Seymour
In a statement, Seymour said exemptions would not be granted under the programme.
"We have contracted to ensure a system is in place that is delivering meals on time and is continuing to get better," he said.
"I'll make the point that last week a school said they were pulling out of the programme, however, once parents and students responded and said they wanted the lunches, they ended up getting them delivered today."
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Kimihia School in Huntly announced it would temporarily suspend the school lunch programme, which Seymour told Q+A's Jack Tame had subsequently "got overwhelmed by parents and students saying, 'No, don't do this, we want the lunches'."
During the interview, Seymour accused critics of the government's revamped school lunch programme of "nitpicking" and that it had shown "two sides of New Zealand".
"One is to point out at every opportunity: 'This is terrible,' 'This is wrong,' 'It's a conspiracy,' 'He's trying to deliberately sabotage it.' The other is, 'Yep, you know what? It's not what happens to you in life; it's how you deal with it.'
"And each time there's been a problem, we've been upfront, we've solved it, and it's kept getting better."
