\u201cWe know the issue caused a lot of concern among parents and students at the school, so we considered it important to provide accurate and independent information about the likely cause,\u201d Arbuckle said. <\/p>\n
Haeata Community Campus principal Dr Peggy Burrows. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter carefully examining all the possible causes, we are able to reassure parents that there is not a wider, or ongoing, food safety risk with the School Lunch Collective. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe most plausible explanation is that lunches intended to be served to students the previous week were accidentally mixed in with that day\u2019s lunches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haeata Community Campus principal Peggy Burrows previously told the Herald the findings of their internal investigation were with the board and the school\u2019s lawyers and were due to be released on Friday.<\/p>\n
Burrows earlier maintained that none of their \u201crobust\u201d systems failed between Thursday and Monday, when the food was served.<\/p>\n
Arbuckle said New Zealand Food Safety\u2019s Food Compliance Officers considered the possibility that the error was made by the distributor. <\/p>\n
They found it was unlikely that the distributor delivered lunches from the previous week because several other schools received the same lunch on the same day with no reported issues.<\/p>\n
Arbuckle said another reason was that the Compass Christchurch Kitchen (Central Production Kitchen) only receives the number of meals required for the following school day because of the minimal capacity of available chillers. <\/p>\n
The lunches served at Haeata Community Campus were covered in a thick layer of mould.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaeata Community Campus did not receive any meals on the Friday prior to the issue arising on Monday, as it had a \u2018teachers only\u2019 day,\u201d Arbuckle said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat Friday, the same delivery truck was used to deliver a different meal to a number of other schools. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is therefore unlikely that the delivery to Haeata Community Campus on Monday could have included leftover meals from the previous week.\u201d <\/p>\n
When looking for other possible causes, he said officers discovered that the school routinely kept an unknown number of Cambro containers onsite. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese are used to deliver lunches to primary school students in their classrooms. Leftovers are taken to Cambro containers in the cafeteria so that older students and teachers can help themselves,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The investigation concluded that meals intended for the previous week were inadvertently left in these cafeteria Cambro containers and made available to students.<\/p>\n
Arbuckle said this incident may have happened because the school did not track the number or contents of Cambro containers on-site. <\/p>\n
There were 20 mouldy meals discovered, all from the cafeteria Cambro container. <\/p>\n