Fears that uneaten school lunches are adding to the nation's landfill problem. Photo: Jackie Diprose
Anti-food waste campaigners have asked the Auditor-General to look into waste from the school lunch programme as part of his inquiry into the scheme.
They say unopened lunches returned to providers are likely a small fraction of the programme's waste, but appear to be the only measure the Ministry of Education tracks towards its performance indicators.
"We are really missing a trick and have a real blindspot, if we are not looking at all the food from start to finish, and it also doesn't include manufacturing and upstream processes," said Kaitlin Dawson of Food Waste Champions NZ.
"We don't know what's happening there, and then once schools have a bunch of opened and uneaten lunches to deal with, we don't know where that's going - if it's going to landfill and producing methane emissions, or if they have better pathways to deal with that."
Food waste produces methane - the same potent, planet-heating gas produced by New Zealand's millions of cows and sheep.
Instead of rising from grass, and other animal food breaking down in the airless confines of cow's or sheep's gut, this methane comes from wasted food and garden material breaking down in the airless conditions of a landfill.
While methane from cows and sheep accounts for about 91 percent of New Zealand's total methane, landfills account for most of the rest.
Avoiding food waste, and ensuring any scraps are composted, or used to create gas for household or business use reduces the climate impact.
The Government's procurement plan for the restructure of the school lunch programme included a performance indicator of keeping waste below 7 percent of total food. It also mentioned opportunities to reduce surplus food and manage waste disposal.
The Food Waste Champions group said it understood waste was only measured by tracking the proportion of lunches returned unopened to the provider. It said the Ministry didn't know the fate of many meals that were opened, but largely uneaten.
"What I understand is that a lot of waste is still happening at schools," Dawson said. "We see the inquiry into the school lunch programme as an incredible opportunity for the providers and everyone involved to make sure more food gets to people."
The anti-waste group also said that, while the previous programme of using local lunch providers resulted in families taking a lot of uneaten food home, this couldn't happen under the new model, because the food was not supposed to be reheated.
It said the lack of centralised data was a governance gap, which the Auditor-General should look into.
"We fully support the intent behind 'Ka Ora, Ka Ako', but the current model poses significant food waste risks, as well as environmental impacts, if not properly monitored," Dawson said.
While the full emissions from the current programme weren't known, Dawson pointed to a climate footprint evaluation by the Ministry in 2022, which found the school lunches programme to be the third-highest emissions source for the Ministry, producing the equivalent of more than 71,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
Ministry's response
The Ministry said a survey of suppliers in the first term of the 2025 school year showed 33 percent of kitchens composted some food waste and 26 percent fed scraps to animals. It said uneaten food scraps removed from schools were composted "where possible", but it didn't supply a percentage for this.
The Ministry said previous iterations of the programme delivered meals to the total school roll, but now schools ordered meals based on attendance, which it believed was the most sustainable way to reduce waste.
"Our service agreements require suppliers to provide details on the approach to both waste and surplus meals, and to set minimisation targets," it said.
"Packaging waste and food scraps removed from schools and kura are measured by weight, and where possible, is composted or recycled. The number of surplus meals returned to the supplier is counted for reporting purposes."
It said NZ Food Waste Champions had not approached the Ministry about its concerns, but it welcomed the opportunity to discuss the issue.
Kerbside rollout for food waste ditched
Dawson said a scrapped kerbside compost bin rollout was also a missed opportunity by the Government to use its power to lower food waste emissions.
The Government has a goal of cutting total methane by 10 percent by 2030 and between 24-47 percent by 2050, although the 2050 target is under review.
Environment officials and the Climate Change Commission have told successive governments that the waste sector has potential to do more than its share towards reducing methane, despite being a smaller contributor than farming, through capturing methane from landfills and using it for energy, and diverting food scraps from reaching landfills in the first place.
In 2022, waste sector emissions were almost 20 percent below 1990 levels, because of tightened regulations on many city landfills.
Waste companies say, if all landfills performed as well as the newest ones, methane emissions could reduce further.
Diverting and reducing waste using food scrap collections, food rescue and other measures would also help, according to campaigners.
The Climate Change Commission estimated waste emissions could be slashed further to a total 40 percent reduction by 2035, with strong policies, but several planned waste policies have been rolled back by the Government.
The Waste Minimisation Fund available to councils for initiatives such as kerbside collections was cut by 49 percent at the 2025 Budget.
Three days before Christmas 2024, the Government quietly cancelled plans for a performance standard for council composting schemes, as well as a mandatory roll out of kerbside food scraps bins for all urban areas.
More than half of New Zealanders have access to kerbside compost collection, including Auckland and Christchurch residents, but people in cities likeTaupō and Wellington do not.
The schemes collect food waste and compost them, reducing methane emissions.
One scheme at Reporoa turns household compost into gas that can partially replace fossil gas in household appliances, but Dawson said that, with only one such facility operating, many more initiatives were needed to reduce and reuse waste.
Environment officials told Environment Minister Penny Simmonds that making kerbside collections mandatory in urban areas would likely result in rates rises for residents in places without existing schemes.
She was told the rollout would also "offer a high level of waste minimisation and emissions abatement benefits".
They recommended shifting the rollout deadline to 2030 from 2027, but the mandate was dropped.
That decision resulted in Taupō District Council turning down $486,000 government funding to create an organic kerbside collection and ditching its kerbside collection plans.
Environment ministry officials have noted that food waste produced six times the emissions of other landfill waste and broke down quickly, releasing much of its methane, before it could be captured by landfill gas systems.
They've reported that New Zealand was underperforming in waste reduction and management, and lags behind many countries, when it came to reducing and managing household waste.
In 2021, an average of 700kg of waste per person was sent to landfill, making New Zealand one of the highest generators of waste per person in the OECD.
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