Why can’t we provide a free school meal scheme as good as Brazil’s?

2026-03-07 - 17:07

Opinion: The Ministry of Education recently dropped Ka Ora, Ka Ako from the name of our national free school meal initiative, which is now just called the New Zealand Healthy School Lunches Programme. This comes after a slate of cuts since the beginning of 2025, brought about by the coalition Government, which turned what was a high-performing education initiative with economic, health and environmental co-benefits into doing as little as possible, a tick-box exercise rather than a programme that nourishes tamariki. When child food insecurity is at an all-time high, and families across the country are struggling with the cost of living, it is more important than ever that children have the nutrition they need to thrive in school. For some kids, it’s the main meal they’ll get for the day. But evaluations of the original Ka Ora, Ka Ako programme found that all kids in schools receiving the daily healthy lunches were benefiting from it – not just those who were most hungry. It’s time we rethink food in schools in this country and look to what other parts of the world do. More than 140 countries have national school meal programmes that feed nutritious meals to all children attending school regardless of ‘need’, including many high-income countries, for example Japan, France, Sweden, and Canada. Brazil has had one for 70 years, and its programme is considered an international gold standard. It has lifted millions of children out of malnutrition over the past few decades. Its national food insecurity rates are now lower than New Zealand’s. Our research, What Works in School Meals, compared Ka Ora, Ka Ako with the Brazilian school meal programme, to see what we could learn. The key differences included that school meals were seen as an investment, not a cost; the programme was socially embedded, with help from legislation, and many spaces where civil society actively participate in programme oversight; and the meal programme was not just about lunch, but included broader goals to generate health, environmental and economic co-benefits. I saw a Brazilian school meal programme in action this year when I visited the Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia de São Paulo, in Registro, São Paulo State. School meals in Brazil aren’t a handout – every child attending a public school, whether it is pre-school, primary, intermediate, high school or vocational school, is entitled to a free nutritious hot meal. The programme is provided to more than 40 million students up to 18. New Zealand’s school lunch programme covers only a quarter of schools, based on the Equity Index, reaching about 240,000 students. In theory, this serves the children who are most likely to be facing hardship. But in practice, more than half of children experiencing food insecurity do not attend schools receiving the programme. School lunch programmes are more than just filling hungry bellies and getting bums on seats; sharing meals with peers, learning manners and how to eat healthily (and try new things) brings about a wealth of other educational and behavioural improvements that all children benefit from. Right now, fewer than six percent of Kiwi kids are getting the recommended five daily servings of vegetables. Poor nutrition in children is a problem across the board. Brazil’s programme success didn’t happen overnight. It started as a more centrally driven top-down approach featuring largely shelf-stable processed foods. It hasn’t always been popular with conservative politicians but is now enshrined in law that provides a guaranteed minimum budget to keep operating each year. The programme has widespread public approval. It also has deeply embedded civil society participation and oversight, which boosts public confidence in its management and allows for continual improvements to be identified and put into action. In contrast, our school lunches programme is politically contested, and vulnerable. The coalition Government sees it as a cost they would like to cut, not an investment in our future as a country. Its management over the past two years has been anything but transparent, and people are legitimately sceptical about the programme’s ability to deliver on its objectives in its current form. Brazil’s programme is properly resourced and designed to achieve goals beyond food security. It employs thousands of nutritionists to plan school menus that are nutritious, appealing, align with local cultural diets, and that meet the established standards. These standards have evolved to unlock greater health, environmental and economic co-benefits. In 2009, Brazil became the first country to mandate direct procurement from family farmers in its food programme, prioritising local producers, organic and agro-ecological crops, women, and socially vulnerable groups, such as Indigenous communities and Quilombolas, Afro-Brazilian inhabitants of self-governing communities. The inclusion of family farming products in school meals has led to the use of more vegetables, fruits, and legumes, as well as reductions in the use of ultra-processed foods. The move also contributed to shifts towards more sustainable agricultural models, and stimulated national growth in gross domestic product, and created more jobs. Since 2020, no more than 15 percent of Brazil’s school meal food procurement budget can be spent on processed and ultra-processed foods, which will be reduced to 10 percent this year. At least 80 percent of the same funding must be dedicated to sourcing unprocessed or minimally processed foods, and 5 percent can be used for cooking ingredients such as salt, oil, and sugar. In contrast, the coalition Government has stripped our school lunch programme to the bare minimum. The original Ka Ora, Ka Ako programme paid attention to creating robust nutrition standards, and allowed each school the flexibility to choose a producer and work with them to develop menus that kids would enjoy, with feedback systems to adjust these as needed. Schools found suppliers locally, and this created 2455 jobs in 2022, according to Ministry of Education data. Our research at the time indicated that this model would have long-term positive impacts on New Zealanders’ health, our economy, and the sustainability and resilience of our food system. Massive cuts to the programme in 2025 drove down the price that could be paid per lunch. It was more than halved, leaving only a handful of large suppliers able to commit to a contract. They weren’t able to deliver on quality and safety, so it has been back to the drawing board. It’s time to overhaul this important programme, building on what works, and dropping what doesn’t. We would be wise to look at what has been learned in other countries, especially Brazil’s 70 years of experience.