New Zealand Food Safety has concluded there are no food safety concerns with the government’s school lunch provider following an investigation into mouldy lunches discovered at a Christchurch school.
NZ Food Safety said the most likely explanation is that lunches intended for the previous week were mistakenly mixed with the day’s meals.
Investigators concluded it was unlikely that the school lunch provider, School Lunch Collective, had delivered expired meals. However, the school has insisted that the mouldy lunches were not caused by an error on their part.
“We know the issue caused a lot of concern among parents and students at the school, so we considered it important to provide accurate and independent information about the likely cause,” Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle said.
“After carefully examining all the possible causes, we are able to reassure parents that there is not a wider, or ongoing, food safety risk with the School Lunch Collective.”
Several other schools received the same lunch on that day without any reported problems, and the Compass Christchurch Kitchen only prepared the number of meals needed for the next school day due to limited chiller capacity.
Haeata Community Campus, the school where mouldy lunches were discovered, did not receive any meals the Friday before the mouldy meals were found on Monday because it was a teachers’ only day.
On that Friday, the same delivery truck was used to distribute a different meal to several other schools.
Arbuckle said it was therefore unlikely that the delivery to Haeata Community Campus on Monday contained leftover meals from the previous week.
He said while investigating other possible causes, officers found that the school regularly stored an unspecified number of Cambro containers on site.
“Leftovers are taken to Cambro containers in the cafeteria so that older students and teachers can help themselves.”
The school contested this claim, stating that it did not store any Cambro containers on the premises.
New Zealand Food Safety has made several recommendations following the investigation. These include improving communication regarding the handling of Cambro containers and considering their full traceability, enhancing the management of leftover meals, clarifying responsibilities for overseeing school meal programmes, and reviewing overall food safety processes to ensure higher standards.