Dannevirke High School principal Di Carter says students used to come to school hungry before it introduced school lunches five years ago. Photo: RNZ/Jimmy Ellingham
Amid the horror stories of school lunches too hot to handle and inedible School Lunch Collective meals, some schools are going it alone.
Dannevirke High School in the lower North Island employs its own cooking staff and has its own kitchen to provide healthy and sizeable meals to its 418 students.
The school's had its per-head budget for the food cut in half this year, but there are few complaints about what's served to students in the school whare kai - its former hostel refractory.
Pumpkin or tomato soup for morning tea and Moroccan chicken tortillas for lunch are on the menu when RNZ visited on Wednesday.
"I think they're very good considering what I've seen online for other schools," a year 13 student told RNZ.
"I think they're really good and I also think they're really good for students who don't have good lunches at home," said another year 13.
Schools that provide their own lunches are funded to spend $4 a head. Last year Dannevirke High School was funded about $8 a head.
For schools that use external suppliers, such as the liquidated Libelle Group, it's only $3 a head, which left Dannevirke High School students shaking their heads.
"I don't know how they eat them compared to what we eat. I feel like it's so unfair," one student said of the cheaper meals.
Others said they see comments about how students at other schools wouldn't feed the lunches to their cats or dogs, and that they looked gross compared to what Dannevirke High School served.
For the rest of the week that will be lasagne with a green salad on Thursday, before a vegetable-laden pizza on Friday and likely a curry early next week.
Some students said they even go back for seconds if there's any left, which means there's virtually no waste, apart from a little bit for the school pig bins.
The school has four full-time and one part-time staff members in its kitchen.
Kandice Speers, left, and Jacqui Peck stand ready to serve soup to students for morning tea on Wednesday. Photo: RNZ/Jimmy Ellingham
Head chef Jacqui Peck said there were about six pumpkins in the pot of soup, while lunch on Wednesday had 36 kilograms of chicken breast, 15 lettuces, 5kg of carrots, 2kg of red unions, a red cabbage and six cucumbers.
She was disgusted watching what's been happening at some schools, but had also been forced to make changes due to funding cuts.
"We've had to cut down this year. I used to have fruit for all-day grazing. This year they can only have one piece per day," she said.
"We had to cut things out. I've had to drop stuff like beef and halve what I order, and top it up with lentils and stuff like that. And, we certainly can't afford to serve salad every day."
The school's made its own lunches for five years and for a while made them for two other schools, too.
Its students do work experience in the kitchen and principal Di Carter said she didn't think about using an external supplier, such were the meals' importance.
"We have noticed in period 5 in the afternoon a huge difference in behaviour. We do not have the behaviour we had before," Carter said.
"Because there's no sweets or lollies or high-energy drinks and it's only water, students are way better performing at school."
Previously, students were coming to school hungry.
"Probably some of them wouldn't have got fed at all the night before, not that day, but [now] they're being fed and we know they are."
At the whare kai, the line for soup moves swiftly, under the supervision of teacher Te Amokura Gaffey.
After 35 years in education, she said she could see the difference feeding hungry children was making.
"There seems to be an attitude in the country that parents should feed their own kids."
"I can't think of a better way to use my taxpayer dollar, to be honest. Why don't we just feed all the kids, whether they need it or not why can't schools just do that, because they do it overseas? And I think it's a really good thing, a really worthwhile investment here in Aotearoa."
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