School lunches are a form of collective care

Comments across social media reveal NZ has some ugly attitudes towards children and families

Reading the many comments on the news items and social media posts regarding Compass Groups school lunches being late, unattractive, and/or inedible is revealing.

It is clear from many comments that there remains a deep misunderstanding and/or ignorance of the realities facing New Zealand families today. The disconnect between those living abled-bodied, food secure lives and those grimly eking it out remains as large as ever; the self-satisfactory smug comments littering social media do little to close the gap.

Some practical considerations

Many struggling families are working families. A 2019 report found that 7% of working households were under the poverty line - about 51,000 households. Given the cost-of-living crisis, the rise in rents and power, it is likely that this number has increased. Ever-increasing rents cost working families the most and eats into food budgets. Despite both parents working, there is often insufficient income to cover basic living costs.

Cooking a hot meal with adequate protein becomes increasingly expensive once you factor in the cost of power (not to mention the time and energy required to plan, prepare, and cook said meals).

Supermarkets have large amounts of waste bread, which disposed of via food banks - City Missions are inundated with cheap supermarket loaves which are then passed on to families in food parcels or given away by community houses.

so much cheap white bread

Think about what this means in practice - easy access to bread and prohibitive power costs - and you can see how plain sandwiches become a staple dinner fare. When a sandwich becomes dinner and is associated with food insufficiency, being expected to eat (and be grateful for) yet another meal consisting primarily of slices of white bread is unhelpful.

Growing children need protein. If you know anything about food costs right now, you’ll know that protein is very expensive. As I’ve said before, you can’t grow a cow in your back yard. You might get away with chickens, perhaps, but the practicalities can be tricky (apartment living, sufficient outdoor space, ability to collect eggs, dietary needs, able bodies). Previously cheap forms of protein (e.g., eggs, baked beans, minced beef) are becoming increasingly costly.

Most forms of protein require cooking on a hot stove to become safe and edible. Even the much-touted dried beans and lentils require extensive soaking and cooking - a failure to do so can have fatal results. Cooking a ‘proper meal’ requires access to sufficient electrical power and adequate time/energy to prepare and cook. Two things that are in short supply when you’re working long hours for not enough money.

Think about what this means in practice - power is in short supply, making cooking meals from scratch expensive. Cheap forms of protein require preparation and long cooking times to become edible. White bread is plentiful and often free/cheap.

What might a child need to eat when all there is at home is white bread and jam?

Why might an edible hot meal with sufficient protein have more benefits?

the Swedish meal model

In Sweden hot school lunches are provided to all students ages 6 to 16 and most students ages 16 to 19, five days a week. School meals are considered important for the students’ health, social well-being and ability to learn. This is form of collective care for the nations children.

Individualism vs collective care

One theme woven into the comments on social media is hyper-individualism. These comments view children as solely the responsibility of the parent who birthed them and erase the need for wider contributions to creating a society where we all thrive. The classic of course is the “if you can’t feed em don’t breed em”. Such commentators conveniently overlook that every functioning society needs healthy, educated children who go on to be contributing members of society.

If a society doesn’t collectively ensure care for all children, irrespective of parental income, then we all suffer for it (see Wilkinson and Pickett for a longer explanation of how this works).

The other classic is the nostalgic trip down memory lane, an endless variation on “back in my day…” These comments carelessly erase the wider societal contributions that were once commonplace (e.g., more extensive social housing, lower rents relative to income, universal family benefit, sufficient wages, adequately funded health and education). Smugly self-congratulatory, these individuals take credit for their individual success, erase the way their families benefitted from universal supports, and deride those struggling for not ‘trying hard enough’.

Both types of commentary erode solidarity between groups and make it more difficult to generate the type of communal, collective, caring responses necessary to undo the harms of neoliberalism and individualism.

Providing school lunches is a collective response - and one that is far more helpful and practical than sneering at parents and families doing it tough.

Connection and belonging

Lastly, the provision of school lunches is about more than food; it is about belonging, being in the world, and social connection:

Ordinary, mundane, and unremarkable activities such as school lunches exist beyond simplistic, individualistic notions of transactional food-related behavior. Meal provisioning and consumption is entangled within webs of social interaction that are reproduced in the everyday life. The organization of everyday life refers to that which is visible (for example, eating lunch), and the symbolic meanings and values contained within (such as a sense of belonging). The latter can be difficult to adequately articulate because it is a deeply intuitive and subjectively felt occurrence.

Emplaced food-related practices, such as the communal eating of school lunches, are deeply connected to broader ways of being in the world¹. They also embed a sense of belonging and sustain social relationships with others. The ability to engage in acts of sharing and exchange with regards to food is a key expression of care for others beyond those present². In this way, leftover school lunches are not “waste” but through being shared with the wider community they engender a sense of connection and care.

These acts contribute to and maintain the social cohesion of schools and their wider communities. The absence of sufficient food to feed a child, oneself, or to participate in community activities ruptures important cultural practices and relationship activities thereby disrupting social cohesion³. This rupturing leaves people feeling out-of-place, and socially and culturally disconnected. The provision of plentiful food in the form of school lunches works to mend these ruptures.

Thinking about community and collective care and the times we find ourselves all in, let me leave you with this poem from Loryn Brantz, as illustrated by Susanne Krauss:

Inauguration 2025