An Auckland based catering service, Ngāti Foody Caterers, is offering their services as a rebuttal to growing concerns around recent government led, free school lunches.
The Māori owned and whānau operated kaupapa are encouraging schools in South Auckland to move to their catering services, with five-dollar lunch packs per student.
The business’ founder Te Kou Panapa says tamariki deserve to have healthy and well-prepared lunches, sustainable for good learning.
“I can offer something better, we, Ngāti Foody’s can offer something better. I would say not only us as Ngāti Foody because I know that when the lunches were pretty good a couple of years ago, there were a lot of different iwi collectives that were out there doing the kai and putting good kai into their kura. Give it back to us, give it back to people that know how to manaaki.”
Who is Ngāti Foody Caterers?
Ngāti Foody Caterers began in 2023 at Manurewa Marae, catering to Māori with kai that they say, ‘nourishes both the body and the soul.’
Currently Ngāti Foody Caterers are serving the community by offering a space for rangatahi who are interested in working in catering.
Panapa says schools in South Auckland are his target, saying the need is in his community.
“The need is in our South Auckland whānau, our whānau are finding it really hard to live in South Auckland, the price of living is really high. Going back to the comments that the prime minister made about marmite sandwiches and apples, our whānau can’t afford fresh produce like apples, it’s too expensive. ”
Free school lunches
Last year the government introduced a new model to the ka ora ka ako initiative, creating cheaper lunches per student across the 1000 schools it supplies.
The new model supplies lunches to 242,000 students at three dollars per student, however, has faced some issues since the start of the year.
Issues of timeliness and quality of the food have been raised, as well as backlash towards the prime minister’s comments around urging dissatisfied parents to ‘make a marmite sandwich and put an apple in a bag.’
Panapa is calling for support to help produce ‘better’ kai for schools.
“One of the kura that has reached out to us has over 1800 tauira at their kura. It’s a big kura so kaimahi is something. Also just, external networks who deal with fresh produce,” he says.
