I haven’t lived in the Murchison area since I was 12, but give me a reason to be proud of my hometown and I grasp it with both hands.
When I heard earlier this year about the innovative way the Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunch programme was being delivered at Murchison Area School, I was chuffed.
The local Beechwoods Cafe is in its fourth year of the programme and its recipes have been so good, the Ministry of Education shared them nationwide.
Cafe owner Jeanine Gill thoughtfully developed a programme which not only provided nutritious appetising meals, but also paid attention to minimising waste and carbon emissions.
The food is delivered on a trolley trundled down the road from the cafe rather than using a gas-guzzling vehicle, the meals are in containers which go back to the cafe for washing and re-use and the school supplies and washes its own cutlery.
If a dish proves unpopular, Jeanine takes it off the menu and tries something else.
At times, school pupils developed recipes and helped to cook them in the cafe kitchen. Jeanine put some of the meals on the menu.
Where possible, she buys local produce, supporting market gardeners in the Nelson area.
To me, the service she provides is an all-round winner. It is delivering nutritious and interesting food to all school pupils in a way that suits the community, providing a boost to the local economy and employment for two workers in a small town, as well as adding to education about healthy eating.
But that service will finish at the end of the year, even though Jeanine, in common with many other providers, understood after cost-cutting changes announced in May, the status quo would continue for those pupils in years 0 to 6, with alternatives only applying to older children in years 7 and above.
She thought she could have made that work.
Existing providers were informed about the further changes to cover pupils of all ages and the move to a national system on the same day the announcement was made last month, on a hastily arranged Zoom call, after the news had already hit the media.
Jeanine said there was a short, scripted announcement and those on the call were given no opportunity to ask questions.
Providers were devastated. After the official had left the call, providers who stayed on were saying ‘‘what the hell just happened? Where’s the notification?’’
People’s lives had been turned upside down.
Shabby, shabby, shabby.
It surprises me that the local MP, Maureen Pugh, whose party talked up the importance of localism in last year’s election campaign, is parroting the David Seymour line on the programme, placing more emphasis on cost than anything else.
Does anyone seriously believe the $3 meals prepared initially in Hamilton and then reheated in a series of kitchens around the country, the locations for which have not yet been finalised, will be anywhere near as good as the Beechwoods’ offerings?
It seems Murchison’s meals are likely to be coming from Christchurch, a four-hour drive at least.
The Ministry of Education tells me the meals will be kept in insulated carriers purpose-built to maintain temperature for extended periods for both hot and cold lunches.
Like me, Jeanine is not convinced about the quality of the hot meals after four hours. She suggests the food will resemble soggy stew or a variation of that.
There is also considerable haziness about the carbon footprint and waste management of the new regime. The ministry says the meals will be delivered in aluminium containers with soft plastic covers which will be collected from schools.
The aluminium containers will then be recycled into a high-quality industrial product, which allows them to be re-used in different ways.
How is that as good as something reusable? Who is going to wash the material for recycling?
The ministry sidestepped questions about consideration of the carbon footprint of the new system and the cost of that in planning for the new model. I had wondered if any comparisons were made between the old model and the new one. In the case of Murchison, it is hard to see the new model would produce fewer emissions. From what I can tell, this is only to be considered after the fact.
It angers me small communities’ endeavours can be so casually dismissed in favour of a multinational business and one with a chequered quality track record at that. The Murchison girl in me hopes there will be a backlash.
■Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
