As changes come to the Ka Ora, Ka Ako or Healthy Schools initiative the Gore school is weighing up two options.
Under the programme, nutritious lunches are funded by the Ministry of Education.
Māruawai College have been a part of this for a year, and it had been fantastic, principal Mel Hamilton said.
"We believe there has been an increase in concentration, it’s been good for social cohesion between the two campuses.
"Students are eating together, sharing food together," she said.
Mrs Hamilton said the programme had been very helpful for nearly 700 students catered to daily.
"It really is a gift, for kids and their families," she said.
For the past year, lunches for the school have been prepared by Subway and Gore resident Kath Mitchell.
However Mrs Hamilton said with changes to the programme, this will no longer be the case, as food will be prepared in the North Island and then delivered to the school.
"The intent is, they’ll have kitchens all over New Zealand where they heat up the food, if it’s hot food.
"We order it through a portal which has yet to be shown to us or developed, so some of it is a work in progress," she said.
Under the new programme, associate Education Minister David Seymour has set the bar high on savings, estimating each lunch will cost only $3 per student.
The lunches will be produced by the School Lunch Collective, led by Compass Group, in partnership with Libelle and Gilmours.
Mrs Hamilton said with regard to the changes, only time would tell how it impacted the school.
"We’ll wait and see. It’s a lot of kids they’re feeding nationally, and it’s quite high stakes, I think.
"I’m really hopeful they get it right for our kids, and our community."
Mrs Hamilton said the change from locally produced food to a delivered product would impact the school’s link to the community when it came to feedback.
"For us, we were supporting local businesses. They were so responsive to feedback from staff and children.
"That’s been the amazing thing, they act on it. Now, there will be no agency, in my opinion," she said.
Mrs Hamilton said the school was exploring an internal model, where the lunches were prepared in-house by staff, with funding from the ministry.
"I know Menzies do the internal model ... and that’s the one we want, too," she said.
But this comes with additional costs, and the school was figuring out the feasibility, Mrs Hamilton said.
"We’re mapping it at the moment, but we believe we can.
"We’ll possibly have to hire new staff, get a new fridge, a new oven, there’s planning going into it.
"They do give good guidelines about the food, nutritional requirements and portion size," she said.
Mrs Hamilton said it was a waiting game for the school.
"I’m not sure about all this. It will be interesting."
