David Seymour Chooses School Lunches Provider With Questionable Record: Listeria, Horse Meat & Poor Quality

Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, October 25th, 2024 - 27 comments
Categories: act, child welfare, david seymour, schools - Tags: , , , , , ,

Reprinted from Mountain Tui Substack post

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.

27 comments on “David Seymour Chooses School Lunches Provider With Questionable Record: Listeria, Horse Meat & Poor Quality ”

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  1. Tiger Mountain 1
    25 October 2024 at 10:22 am

    Jee–zus, not Compass again.

    Mass produced, shipped, cook/chill meals have been the bane of various institutions for years. Now NZ school kids also get to try the “slops” meals that hospital patients and aged care residents have struggled with–meatball Tuesday etc.

    Everything suffers here, local producers and contractors, food quality, kids health, and programmes that some schools started running with growing their own vegetables–from garden to table, which taught life skills.

  2. AB 2
    25 October 2024 at 10:23 am

    Nothing emphasises Seymour's and ACT's economic illiteracy more than removing opportunities for local businesses (private or community-organised) to thrive, develop local skills and build local wealth – but instead handing contracts to multinationals where profits go offshore. And committing this act of self-destructive vandalism to save money the government doesn't need to save – because a government debt is always someone else's asset, and in this case the asset is those local businesses which are also generating tax revenue, keeping people in employment and contributing to viable communities. Deluded zealots, all of them.

    • tc 2.1
      25 October 2024 at 12:07 pm

      Yes true that and is it too much to ask the media take a good look at what's happened and who is benefitting here. Up against what's been lost locally and nutritionally.

      Wreckers alright but economically literate IMO, those ideological blinkers come in handy here.

      • AB 2.1.1
        25 October 2024 at 1:03 pm

        Maybe so TC, because the CoC are carrying plenty of government debt, so it's maybe not that their real focus is eliminating debt. However, the private assets created by their government debt are socially destructive – such as making landlordism profitable through tax breaks and thereby consolidating home ownership in fewer hands. Community-owned enterprise (i.e. investing in the population) on the other hand is a good reason for the government to have debt.

    • SPC 2.2
      25 October 2024 at 5:46 pm

      As a tool/shill of international capital, Seymour is a bought man and does not act for the local democracy.

      • Rodel 2.2.1
        25 October 2024 at 10:22 pm

        Early youtube vieos show a young Seymour apparantly radicalised into the Koch brothers Atlas cult, parroting their ideology to a young impressionable female (actually the whole discussion was a pre-scripted, amateurish production about equivalent to an intermediate school level play). Seymour is still parroting the same simplistic mantras with which he was inculcated but he doesn't realised he is as much a victim of an evil cult as are adicalised youg jihadists

  3. Dolomedes III 3
    25 October 2024 at 10:41 am

    ACT believes in self-reliance, right? Rather than handing people a fish to eat, teach them how to catch their own fish etc. But Seymour hates the idea of school lunches so much that's he's missed a trick here. A school lunches program could be used as a solution multiplier – teach the kids how to cook their own lunches. Roster kids to cook, wash up etc. With appropriate supervision of course. So we'd be feeding hungry kids, and teaching them essential life skills – breaking the intergenerational cycle of culinary and nutritional incompetence that afflicts the lower socioeconomic classes.

  4. Vaughn 4
    25 October 2024 at 11:42 am

    Trans fats? Betcha. But DS couldn’t care less. It’s all about the dollars.

  5. Mike the Lefty 5
    25 October 2024 at 3:13 pm

    Not surprised for two reasons.

    First, it's just so like Seymour to choose a cheap crappy dodgy provider with a poor track record.

    Second, there would have to be some kind of payoff or backhand deal here, because that is how ACT do things and that's how Compass do things.

    Even McDonald's would be better than Compass.

  6. thinker 6
    25 October 2024 at 5:25 pm

    "Who can take some mouldy rice,

    Mix it up with spew,

    Call it healthy Kai

    And deliver it to you?

    The Blandy-man,

    Yes, the Blandy-man can"

    • thinker 6.1
      25 October 2024 at 5:44 pm

      "Listen, children,

      Willy W@nker's got a new school lunch out.

      It's called a 'Scum-didliumtious Bar'

      If you can keep it down for 10 minutes you can have a lifetime supply of hospital food"

      Or

      "This is the eggdicator. It sorts the good eggs from the bad eggs.

      The good eggs go all the way to Bellamy's. The bad eggs go in the school lunches"

  7. SPC 7
    25 October 2024 at 5:44 pm

    First hospital kitchens, then aged care, then school kitchens and related local suppliers.

    All fall to an international corporate.

    What does New Zealand First think? Did they think?

    That none of this was reported by local MSM in their publicity for the programme is on them.

  8. Mac1 8
    26 October 2024 at 8:59 am

    And then, here's how the French do it. https://karenlebillon.com/tag/french-kids-school-lunch-project/

    Subsidised meals, based on family income, municipal oversight, carefully designed menus (far fewer fat kids in France), served at table in the canteen, and a minimum of thirty minutes to eat a multi-course meal- appetiser, warm/hot main, baguette, dairy (cheese or yoghurt) and fresh fruit, and water only to drink.

    The French have a term for this style- la commensalité- eating together in a group.

    The Japanese do it this way. I have been lucky enough to eat school lunches in Japanese as the parent of a teacher there. https://www.japanesefoodguide.com/japanese-school-lunch/

    In both systems, it's about more than the food and its cost.

    And it’s woke food with a capital ‘W’………..

    • thinker 8.1
      26 October 2024 at 9:33 am

      In the government -by-Atlas:

      Scunghi school lunches reduces government expenditures,

      Which cuts taxes for the rich, but

      It creates more fat kids, which

      Creates the need for medical intervention, which

      Brings more business for Big Pharma.

      It's only my opinion, but increasingly, I see the rich treating the middle and lower classes less as fellow human beings and more as resources to exploit.

      It isn't new. The British Empire did it on a race-basis. The American Empire does it on a wealth basis.

    • Mountain Tui 8.2
      26 October 2024 at 10:10 am

      Thank you for sharing that!

      • Mac1 8.2.1
        26 October 2024 at 11:06 am

        For you, the menu for schools in the 17th arrondissement in Paris for a week. Zut alors!

        Monday, September 30th
        Salad: Lentil Salad with tomatoes
        Main: Roast pork or turkey, with peas and carrots
        Cheese/Dairy:Brie
        Dessert: A kiwi

        Tuesday, October 1st
        Salad: Cucumber salad with vinaigrette
        Main: Salmon lasagna and organic spinach
        Cheese/Dairy: Cheese fondu with baguettefor dipping
        Dessert: Organic fruit compote

        Wednesday, October 2nd
        Salad: Macedonian salad with vinaigrette
        Main: Veal ‘marengo’ with rice
        Cheese/Dairy: Petits suisses (akin to flavored yogurt)
        Dessert: An organic orange

        Thursday, October 3rd
        Salad: Cauliflower with vinaigrette
        Main: ‘Hachis Parmentier’ (sort of like Shepherd’s Pie) with organic beef
        Cheese/Dairy: Pyrénées with organic baguette
        Dessert: Fruit salad

        Friday, October 4th
        Salad: Red beans and corn
        Main: Chicken skewer with ratatouille
        Cheese/Dairy: Cheese fondu with bread for dipping
        Dessert: Paris Brest’ (a wonderful dessert made of choux pastry and a praline flavoured cream – yum!)

        https://karenlebillon.com/tag/french-kids-school-lunch-project/

        I'm going to see if I can prepare some of these myself.(Why should French school kids get all the good food?) I did have smoked salmon and pasta on the menu for tonight. Can I do it for $3? The salmon pieces cost $2.30 per 100 gms.

    • Dolomedes III 8.3
      26 October 2024 at 3:35 pm

      There's no such thing as "woke" food, and those French menus seem to consist of sensible balanced meals.

  9. tsmithfield 9
    26 October 2024 at 9:07 am

    …ranging from horse meat…

    Nothing wrong with horse meat. And it is legal for human consumption in NZ. According to the article there is even a processing plant in NZ for that purpose.

    A: While horse meat would be considered unusual for most consumers in New Zealand, it is a perfectly safe meat for people to eat provided it has been slaughtered and processed as meat for human consumption.

    In New Zealand there is one processing plant, which is legally able to process horse meat for human consumption. MPI understands most is exported.

    In fact, back it the day, I remember a restaurant that served up a dish called "Mr Ed is
    Dead". (Mr Ed being a "talking" horse on a sitcom by the. same name back in the day).

    Many of us would find eating horse meat yucky. But, that is largely because we don't like the thought of eating what many people see as a pet animal. In fact, horse meat is quite popular even in countries we would see as quite Western such as France and Switzerland.

    I agree that misrepresenting say horse meat as beef is clearly wrong. However, there is nothing nutritionally wrong with it as far as I know.

  10. Rodel 10
    26 October 2024 at 9:34 am

    It's yours and Seymours'.ehorseshit I don't like

  12. gsays 12
    26 October 2024 at 1:22 pm

    I am keen to know where this slop food is being prepared.

    How long after the preparation starts till the food is at it's destination?

    I learnt about diesel miles embedded in food years ago. It's overdue time for it to be put in the curriculum.

    Like any solution that is sustainable, local is the answer.
    Grown and prepared locally.