Source: Radio New Zealand
Screenshots taken from the internal investigation done by Haeata Community Campus into mouldy lunches being distributed to students on 1 December. Haeata Community Campus
The Christchurch school where mouldy lunches were served to students says an internal investigation has found no evidence to support the Ministry for Primary Industries’ claims that contaminated meals came from the school.
New Zealand Food Safety, a business unit of MPI, is standing by its findings that “the most plausible explanation” was the accidental mixing of fresh meals with lunches meant to be served the week before.
The report by Haeata Community Campus, obtained by RNZ under the Official Information Act, said that claim was unfounded because the school only received the required number of lunches each day and did not have a facility to reheat food or store meals.
The report said questions needed to be raised with MPI and Compass Group, specifically about two different batches of meals identified at the school on Monday, 1 December, when they were prepared, by who, the dates they were distributed to schools, and why contaminated meals were found to be interspersed with uncontaminated meals.
NZ Food Safety acting deputy director-general Jenny Bishop said it received the internal investigation report from Haeata Community Campus last week and responded to the school.
“We carefully reviewed the report and note that it does not introduce any new evidence beyond what was considered in the NZFS investigation released publicly on 10 December 2025,” she said.
School investigation results
The report said when the mouldy meals were discovered on 1 December, eight Cambro boxes containing lunches were delivered to the main building Te Tai o Mahaanui at 9.16am where they were received by a member of the school lunch distribution team. Dietary-specific meals were identified and removed for distribution separately.
The report said all lunches handled by staff during distribution on 1 December were hot to touch.
Camera footage then showed eight Cambro boxes being picked up by the Compass Group delivery driver at 2.26pm.
The investigation also looked at the meals delivered and collected the previous school day, Thursday 27 November. There were no meals delivered on Friday, November 28 because it was a teacher-only day.
The report said eight Cambro boxes were delivered at 9.20am and nine were picked up at 2.26pm on 27 November, because an empty Cambro had been left on the lunch table for students to put their lunch containers in once they were finished.
CCTV screenshots show the Cambro boxes containing meals being delivered on the morning of 1 December and collected that afternoon. Haeata Community Campus
Staff recount finding the mouldy meals
According to the Haeata report, a school nurse said she was walking through the main building on 1 December when she overheard other staff members talking about a “health issue”, with someone saying “we could have a bunch of sick children”, so she went to see if she could help.
“The ladies were opening all remaining lunches to check if there were more rotten ones. I suggested that there must be some processing batch number, and we should identify this rather than just opening all remaining lunches,” she said.
The nurse said a batch number was visible on the plastic lid above a time stamp, but both were difficult to read because of condensation on the inside of the containers as the meals were warm.
Staff identified two different batch numbers, separated the meals by number and then opened those labelled 25297 and found they were all in a state of decay.
“I estimate there were about a couple of dozen or so rotten meals but could not be sure. We checked several of the other batch numbers, and all meals were fine so we decided opening all of them would be unnecessary,” she said.
She checked the rubbish bin located by the tables but did not find any remnants of rotten food or containers with the bad batch number.
The report said a teacher aide was in reception at lunchtime on 1 December when she saw the meals another staff member had opened and asked what it was because it looked grey.
“Two staff members and I looked through the Cambros to see if there were any more of the mouldy meals. As we started looking we were finding more hot mouldy meals spread throughout the good ones, this was the case for all of the Cambros we went through,” she said.
“We noticed that all the mouldy meals had the same batch number, which was different from the good meals. Once we had gone through all the Cambros and taken out all of batch number #25297 we opened all of them and saw they were all grey and mouldy and smelt the putrid odour coming from them.”
The report also said an admin staff member went to get a lunch at around 1.50pm and noticed one of the meals was greyish in colour.
“It was hard to tell as all the meals had condensation on the inside of the lids. So, I opened it and saw a fermented/mouldly meal,” she said.
She said she looked for other meals in the same condition and found some, then took them to the principal. She said both were the same temperature.
Another admin staff member walked into the SLT office that day to find the principal and other staff members inspecting the meals, according to the report.
“An odour was coming from the lunches, I picked one of the lunches up to bring it to my nose to smell and nearly dry retched. It was definitely spoiled. The lunch was still warm when I picked it up. I then picked all three of the lunches up off the table and took them out to the atrium to discard them,” she said.
She later sent a message to alert whānau of the spoiled lunches.
Once learning about the mouldy meals, the staffer asked the lunch team if they were positive the meals had not been left from the prior week and accidentally handed out, the report said.
“I asked two of the administration team to check what was for lunch and if there was any possibility there could have been a mix up. They were absolutely sure that there were no lunches here before they arrived that morning and there was no way the lunches were leftovers as they were hot and condensation from the heat was still seen on plastic film,” she said.
Haeata Community Campus principal Dr Peggy Burrows said no food provided by the Compass Group on 27 November had been left behind for three days.
“I highlighted to investigators that one Cambro containing rubbish, not meals, was left temporarily on site on Wednesday 26 November 2025 but was properly collected the following day by the property staff and was uplifted and returned to the the Compass Group distribution facility by the delivery driver the next day,” she said.
“Haeata’s records, supported by property staff checks of the campus on Thursday 27 November, confirm no Cambros remained on site.”
Haeata Community Campus has been approached for comment.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
