How the external delivery model works#

Every school day, students receive a nutritious lunch prepared and delivered by the external model suppliers.

The selected external suppliers deliver lunches daily to contracted schools through an ordering system. This is updated with student meal requirements by schools.

Suppliers must:

• meet nutrition standards
• practise sustainability
• meet the agreed price point
• have positive relationships with schools
• meet the service levels outlined in their agreement and report back to the Ministry.

External model suppliers#

Over 180,000 students across 633 schools receive a nutritious lunch prepared and delivered by external suppliers. This includes students from secondary, intermediate, full primary (Year 0 to 8), composite (Year 0 to 15) and consolidating primary (Year 0 to 6) schools and kura.

External model suppliers in the Healthy School Lunches programme are listed below.

There are also 17 additional external suppliers that supply lunch to speciality schools.

Menu and meals#

Standard meals#

Suppliers let schools and kura know what will be on the lunch menu each week. All nutritional information and ingredients for the menu are provided from the supplier to the school. Some menus are displayed on the supplier’s website.

All meals must meet nutrition standards.

Nutrition standards

Speciality dietary meals#

Schools should order special dietary meals for any student with allergies, intolerances and religious or ethical needs.

While we know taste can vary, schools should not order special dietary meals for students with likes or dislikes for certain foods.

Complex and special dietary meals

How meals are funded#

Information on the price per meal is available on the programme's funding page.

Funding for Healthy School Lunches

Surplus and waste#

Surplus lunches#

A 'surplus' lunch is an untouched, uneaten lunch left over at the end of the school day. Because each day the number of students who need a meal can change, suppliers need to be flexible to school ordering and adjust meal numbers accordingly. Schools should make sure every student at school who wants a meal gets one, and allow for a small number of extra servings.

Surplus meals are picked up by the suppliers.

Schools are responsible for:

• arranging a safe place on school grounds for surplus meals to be picked up
• informing suppliers when meals are not required, for example, public holidays, exams, teacher-only days or school closures
• keeping food, including left over meals, safe to eat during the school day
• not sharing left over meals outside the school.

Waste and packaging#

Waste is the unfinished leftover food and packaging after lunch has finished.

Learn more about how we manage waste and surplus in the Healthy School Lunches programme.

Waste and surplus management

Services agreements#

We have agreements in place with external model suppliers to make sure we are meeting the aims of the programme.