52567 (2025). Hon Willow-Jean Prime to the Associate Minister of Education

Written Question

Published date: 20 Nov 2025

Metadata

Document type:	Written Question
Parliament number:	54
Question number:	52567 (2025)
Question asked:	09 Nov 2025
Member asking:	Hon Willow-Jean Prime
Portfolio:	Associate Minister of Education
Minister replying:	Hon David Seymour
Answer received:	16 Nov 2025
Status:	Question Answered
Reply type:	Reply
Document ID:	WQ_52567_2025
Document guid:	a8cea5c1-d4ec-4127-a14a-1cc9340d4d0b

52567 (2025). Hon Willow-Jean Prime to the Associate Minister of Education: How many, if any, school lunches were wasted during the week of November 3rd 2025, expressed as an overall number?

Hon David Seymour: I am advised by the Ministry of Education that surplus counts for meals not eaten at the end of lunch service are being monitored and used for continuous improvement of the programme. One of the external model suppliers, the School Lunch Collective (SLC), publishes surplus meal data on their website daily here: https://www.schoollunchcollective.co.nz/ In the week of 3 November 2025, the SLC delivered 420,787 meals. The Ministry has been advised that due to a change in software, the surplus numbers will now be reported a week later, so the information is not yet available.