Equipment

EQUIPMENT COULD A CONTAINER KITCHEN BE YOUR SCHOOL LUNCH SOLUTION?

The Ka Ora, Ka Ako | Healthy School Lunches programme aims to reduce food insecurity by providing access to a nutritious lunch in school every day. Around a million lunches are provided each week. By August 2022, over 63 million lunches have been delivered in 950 schools and kura to over 220,000 learners.

Organisations involved in delivering the programme have been developing a range of solutions for food preparation, cooking, and handling/delivery with a view to lower costs and deliver the programme sustainably, maximising the amount of funding going into the food itself.

One offering that has been developed is a mobile, container-based kitchen.

Stoddart NZ and Host Services have teamed up to design and fit out both 20- and 40-foot containers. These can be used by one school or shared as a central kitchen for several schools. With costs spread across schools this approach can meet multiple dietary requirements/menus, reduce food handling and delivery costs, and can even be integrated with a school’s broader curriculum, working alongside such initiatives as garden to plate or linking horticultural studies right through to Home Economics.

This approach aligns with the view that schools and communities are best placed to understand what their students need. Schools and kura can decide whether to make their own lunches or outsource to an external supplier.

Those schools and kura that outsource choose from a panel of approved suppliers that have met minimum standards of food hygiene, waste management and food preparation. There are a range of supplier models depending on what works best for each school, for example a single supplier or a mix of suppliers.

The Ministry holds the contract with suppliers so that schools do not have to worry about invoicing, payments, or any financial risks.

Schools and kura have the operational day-to-day relationship with their supplier so they can make decisions that are right for their students, eg adapt menus, update student numbers, and agree delivery times and requirements. H