32335 (2025). Hon Willow-Jean Prime to the Associate Minister of Education

32335 (2025). Hon Willow-Jean Prime to the Associate Minister of Education: How many lunches, if any, that were meant to serve specific dietary or religious needs errantly included inappropriate ingredients, such as ham in a vegetarian meal, during the week of June 23rd 2025?

Hon David Seymour: I am advised by the Ministry of Education (the Ministry) that around 760,000 meals were delivered in the week of 23 June 2025, across the 1011 schools in the programme. The Ministry does not track dietary meals across all suppliers and internal meal providers in the programme on a daily basis. The School Lunch Collective (SLC), which delivers meals to 43% (436) of schools in the programme, provides the Ministry with a total of dietary meals it delivered to schools. In the week of 23 June 2025, around 56,000 specific dietary or religious meals were delivered 99.8% in full and on time by the SLC. Of the total meals delivered by the SLC in this week, including specialist meals, three schools received meals late or on lunchtime, which was caused by a slight delay in meal preparation and a communication error. There was also one school that did not receive lunches due to miscommunication about a teacher only day. This is also my response to written parliamentary question 32340, 32344 and 32345 (2025).