Every day across Northland, thousands of students sit down to a free lunch. What’s on the plate tells a much bigger story about who we are and who we could become. Approximately 120 schools get lunches via the Ministry of Education’s Kai Ora, Kai Ako programme. Of these 53 schools manage their own lunches, 54 schools are catered by external contractors, and 14 are supplied by iwi and hapū. Currently $4.00 per student is provided by the Ministry of Education.
This is a clear example of the transition from industrial food systems to regenerative food systems that Climate Action Tai Tokerau is working on. There are a range of providers. Among them is Compass Group New Zealand, a subsidiary of Compass Group PLC, headquartered in England. Globally, it has 580,000 employees operating in 30 countries. This is an example of food system consolidation described in an earlier post, as well as industrial food. I imagine Compass sources the cheapest ingredients possible, likely relying on a very narrow range of suppliers. Here is the information about school lunches from the Compass website. The main kitchens preparing the lunches are in five cities, with Auckland being the closest. Complaints about the quality of school lunches abounded in the news for several months when the programme was first introduced.
Changes in 2026
But Compass seems to have been excluded from the 2026 iteration of Kai Ora, Kai Ako, according to a Beehive press release on 7 November. The press release also foreshadows a price change stating “the weighted average meal cost across all suppliers is $3.46, which is based on the per meal cost of suppliers between $3 and $5 per lunch.”
This diagram from the MoE identifies the suppliers for Tai Tokerau as Pita Pit and Subway. To the best of my knowledge, this does not exclude organisations supporting schools under the internal, or iwi and hapū delivery models. Pita Pit was originally a Canadian Brand and now operates in Aotearoa as a franchise model. Subway is owned by the private equity firm Roark Capital and operates here mostly as franchises.
The upside of the new policy is the possibility of better quality food produced closer to the schools they Service. The downside appears to be a further reduction in the per student MoE payment.
Community provision
By contrast to the industrial food model of long, consolidated supply and distribution chains, some caterers supplying schools are embedded in the community. Ani Leef runs Ani’s Kai and Ani’s Catering in the Far North, supplying eight schools.
Here is some feedback about the kai from a Sport Northland article.
Erin Rea from Herekino school has shared, “What a big difference Ani’s catering has made, the kids are always telling me that it’s awesome! It’s amazing! And what’s great is, that we have no waste! We used to fill up big buckets of scraps and now we have none. They love it. The kai is yum! They are actually looking forward to it and asking what’s for lunch tomorrow because they are looking forward to it so much! The anticipation of what it could be is just as exciting to what they are eating that day! … our previous lunches had plastic top mixed with foil container and it couldn’t be recycled. It was a lot of mahi, for not a lot of food value. Ani is AMAZING and there is NO waste! … Part of our kaupapa was to find someone local who can source local food for our local kids, waste free! We’re thankful to have a local provider, who loves what they do and are inspired to feed the kids food they love, sourcing local ingredients delivered fresh, healthy and nutritional meals to our rangatahi these tamariki are our future!”
This Te Karere video shows Ani’s Caterine in action and the responses from one of the schools it serves.
Ani’s Catering provides other value beside nutritious fresh food. She provides employment for local mums and sources ingredients from local farms. This provides a sharp contrast between industrial and regenerative food provision.
The following table contrasts two ends of the school-lunch spectrum — the industrial, corporate model and the regenerative, community-based model. It’s a simplified comparison, of course; in practice there’s a continuum, and even local providers depend on ingredients sourced from outside the region. Still, the contrast helps clarify our aspirations: to move steadily toward food systems that nourish people, place, and planet.
| Dimension | Industrial / Corporate School Lunches | Regenerative / Community School Lunches |
|---|---|---|
| Supply chains | Long, centralised supply chains; bulk procurement prioritising cost over connection. | Short, localised supply chains that strengthen regional producers and resilience. |
| Motivation and governance | Driven by shareholder returns, efficiency, and contract retention. | Driven by community wellbeing, local employment, and environmental stewardship. |
| Food quality and freshness | Processed ingredients; standardised menus; limited seasonality. | Fresh, seasonal, locally sourced kai that reflects local tastes and cultures. |
| Cultural fit | Uniform meals designed for scale; low responsiveness to cultural preferences. | Meals aligned with local culture and tikanga; pride and relevance for tamariki. |
| Food waste | High levels due to low palatability and disconnection from students’ preferences. | Minimal waste as kai is well-liked and portioned appropriately. |
| Packaging and materials | Heavy use of disposable containers for transport and reheating. | Potential for reusable crockery, compostable packaging, or minimal waste systems. |
| Economic value | Profits extracted to distant corporate centres. | Value circulates locally through wages, local growers, and suppliers. |
| Community engagement | Transactional relationship; little or no contact with whānau or local farms. | Deep relationships with schools, whānau, and local producers; learning opportunities for students. |
| Resilience | Vulnerable to supply disruptions and global price shifts. | Builds regional food security and adaptive capacity. |
| Education and wellbeing | Food as a logistics exercise. | Food as education, connection, and collective wellbeing. |
| Civil emergency response | Exposed to transportation failures and external shocks; limited local capacity to respond. | Strengthens local resilience — community kitchens, growers, and networks can mobilise quickly to feed people in crises. |
When storms, floods, or supply shocks disrupt long supply chains, the weaknesses of industrial food systems become visible. By contrast, regenerative school lunch models act as local infrastructure for resilience – community kitchens, growers, and whānau networks that can keep people nourished and connected when wider systems falter.
If the system works well, school lunches can make a significant contribution to students and the wider community by supporting learning and feeding the one in five kids that go to bed hungry.
Questions
Writing this has raised more questions than it has answered. I would appreciate any help to build on this story and explore how we might accelerate the shift to community provision of school lunches. Here are some questions.
- What is the quality and palatability of Pita Pit School lunches?
- Where are Pita Pit lunches made?
- How can the Ministry of Education’s lunch funding be structured to genuinely support regional food economies and not just local franchises of global brands?
- How do food service regulations impede local provision, including produce grown at school?
- How can local food initiatives like Ani’s Kai be supported to maintain quality and stability while growing sustainably?
- What role could co-operatives or social enterprises play in connecting local farmers to school lunch providers?
- How does eating locally produced, culturally resonant food affect student engagement, learning, and wellbeing?
- Can school lunches be integrated into food literacy programmes, school gardens, or climate education?
- Ultimately, what does a “regenerative public service” look like in practice, and could the school lunch programme be its prototype?
Climate Action Tai Tokerau 