“We have considered all possible causes,” he said.
“We think it is more than likely that the affected meals at the school had been delivered the previous Thursday, remained at the school without refrigeration, and then were accidentally re-served to students alongside fresh meals delivered on Monday.
“This would explain the deterioration of the meals.”
The lunches served at Haeata Community Campus were covered in a thick layer of mould.
However, Haeata Community Campus principal Peggy Burrows strongly disagreed with the body’s findings, saying the school has no place to reheat the food.
“[I’m] deeply disappointed that would have been published today,” she told Newstalk ZB.
“We had three members of the Food Safety Authority on site from MPI. We reviewed the camera footage from Thursday’s delivery and we looked at the camera footage from yesterday’s delivery.”
Burrows said the Compass Group van driver delivered eight cooling boxes of meals to the school on Thursday.
“He offloaded the eight and put them into the cafe. They were put on the benches by our staff. That is clearly seen on the cameras. It was seen on camera,” she said.
“Around 2pm on Thursday, the same van driver arrived and he took eight out of the school. So nothing was left behind on Thursday.”
Haeata Community Campus Principal Peggy Burrows.
Burrows said the same delivery process was carried out yesterday, where nine boxes were delivered, and the same were taken away in the afternoon.
“To claim one may have been left behind and reheated and given to students is a fallacy,” she said.
“Because Haeata Community Campus has no facility to reheat any of those boxes, that is done off site because that is part of the Compass Group contract.”
Burrows plans to bring up her objections to NZFS’s findings with the Ministry for Primary Industries.
“To clarify with them why they would have published something that was categorically untrue.
“This is about a system that failed with the Compass Group. Haeata Community Campus is one of the most vulnerable schools in one of our most vulnerable communities.
“A system’s failure happened yesterday and Haeata is not responsible for that system’s failure.”
I welcome the findings of the New Zealand Food Safety investigation into the mouldy lunches at Haeata Community Campus. The investigation concluded ‘it is more than likely that the affected meals at the school had been delivered the previous Thursday, remained at the school…
— David Seymour (@dbseymour) December 2, 2025
Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour welcomed NZFS’s findings on the issue.
“The investigation concluded ‘it is more than likely that the affected meals at the school had been delivered the previous Thursday, remained at the school without refrigeration, and then were accidentally re-served to students along fresh meals delivered on Monday. This would explain the deterioration of the meals’,” he wrote on Twitter.
He finished his post saying his thoughts are with parents whose children have been affected by “this debacle”.
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