David Seymour's School Lunch Provider Has Questionable Record - Including Listeria, Horse Meat, and Poor Quality

Yesterday, I looked into Seymour’s school lunch provider and found out it was Compass Group - a group that has had a long list of food quality issues and settled out of court for corruption and bribery of officials.

Never mind the food looked like slop - heavy, process laden food with not a fresh fruit or vegetable in sight. Food is so much more than satiety - it’s role modelling, nutrition, balance and also teaching good health habits, so that our kids remain healthy and balanced.

Personally, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than heavily processed, sauce laden meals every day for our tamariki.

But then I’m not Seymour, who claimed it was “one of the best meals that you're going to have”.

Will he volunteer to eat it with one of his colleagues such as Brooke Van Velden every day for lunch?

Nothing a bit of heat won’t cover too - with one journalist noting before hand, the cold meals "smelt a bit off".

Anyway I looked into it, and it wasn’t pretty:

• Thousands of jobs are on the line, as 75 local Kiwi suppliers lose contracts to the global consortium

• Compass Group suppliers were this year subject to so many complaints about food quality and service it was forced to undertake a performance management plan

• Compass Group previously settled out of court for the amount of NZD $87million for bribing officials to obtain food service contracts

• They have been involved in multiple scandals over the years ranging from horse meat to late, spoiled and poor quality school catering.

• Health Coalition Aotearoa points out there is no evaluation or standards in their school lunches project despite its history

More information available at the Wiki and here (Corporate Watch)

Look - the worst thing for me is this - they have a poor history, people know the food is generally crap, and multiple nutritionists and doctors have already said it’s nutritionally incomplete.

Seymour was boasting the other days about how many business opportunities this provides, but tell that to the 73 Kiwi businesses who just lost their contracts.

Last month a school principal said that Seymour was being cynical since no local provider could meet that cost, including delivery, and provide balanced meals.

Now we know how it was done.

PS

Seymour conveniently sacked all the food nutritionists from the program and there are no nutritional guidelines or other standards prescribed.

PPS

Of course the meals will be delivered in aluminium trays and non-compostable packaging - that’s definitely not a concern for the most anti-environment government of recent history.

PPPS

The Health Coalition Aotearoa is amazing - they have been on the case with the Casey Costello tobacco love affair since day one and are tireless advocates for a healthy NZ and evidence based policy.

Here is their statement and an excerpt of comments:

Cabinet has given a $85 million contract to a group led by a company that just months ago was forced to do a performance management plan due to poor quality and service.

Research has shown that the internal model for Ka Ora, Ka Ako, where schools provide meals themselves, was more successful in meeting student needs, and the associated positive outcomes.

We want an Aotearoa where all children and young people have the healthy food they need to grow and learn, irrespective of their family circumstances.

This is not the case in Aotearoa - with 1 in 5 children living in homes that don’t have enough healthy food.

PPPPS

Seymour has diverted funds to support ECE meals now from KidsCan for $4mn. No-one can fault kids getting fed but a lot of Seymour’s regulations have favoured the ECE sector, including his law to enable ECEs to hire relief teachers for cheaper and claiming there is too much “red tape” in the sector - the sort of red tape that the UK Tories denounced, removing regulations there that caused the Greenfell Tower fire.

The ECE business includes the Wright Family, which received $37mn in Best Start payments last year, and fund Sean Plunkett’s The Platform, which regularly features and supports David Seymour.

Finally - PPPPPS -

We have the money - David Seymour diverted $230mn for his own pet projects in the last budget. This has never been about no money - this is about where and how they want to use taxpayer funds for their own interests - irrespective of evidence or wider responsibility.