As a small, remote island, Aotearoa New Zealand can be prone to looking inwards, but a recent research paper has suggested that looking to what works overseas could be beneficial to boosting the troubled Healthy School Lunches Programme.
A new research paper from the University of Auckland and the Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil, What Works in School Meals? Policy lessons from school meal programmes in Brazil and New Zealand compares the two countries’ lunch provision with the aim of informing how New Zealand’s could be improved.
Read the latest print edition of School News online HERE
New Zealand’s school meals programme, which delivers lunches to the 25% of schools most in need, was also known as Ka Ora, Ka Ako until recent Government changes. Funding was lowered and the programme was revised in early 2025; criticism and negative media coverage soon followed, with concerns raised about inedible meals, missed deliveries, a lack of special dietary options and poor nutritional content.
Looking to the success of Brazil’s programme, which has led to the country having lower rates of food insecurity than Aotearoa, could bring benefits to our ākonga and beyond, the paper suggests.
The context: Brazil vs New Zealand
Brazil holds the world’s second largest school meals programme; the first is India’s PM POSHAN scheme, which feeds 120 million children. Brazil’s National School Feeding Programme, known by its acronym PNAE (the programme’s Portuguese name is Programa Nacional de Alimentação Escolar) served meals to 39 million students in 2023.
Related School News article: Union calls for Minister of Education to take over lunch scheme
Both India’s and Brazil’s schemes are universal, meaning students and schools do not have to meet any criteria to be eligible. Brazil’s PNAE scheme is around 70 years old, and sources much of its food from smallholder farmers in the areas around schools to benefit the local economy as well as feeding students.
Brazil’s scheme was implemented in response to substantial hunger and malnutrition in its population, and its success is attributed to lowering premature deaths in the country, many of which were caused by poor physical development in childhood.
In contrast, New Zealand’s scheme is much newer, having been established in 2019 in response to growing child poverty. Ka Ora, Ka Ako started as a pilot, and funding continued consistently until 2024 when it was cut by up to 50%.
Different countries, different outlooks
The report highlights the underlying differences in the two programmes’ purposes; while both started with aims to reduce food insecurity and hunger, they have taken different paths since then.
Brazil’s programme has widened its aims to reduce inequality and shifted the national perspective on a nutritious diet as a universal human right. The meals, whose planning and preparation are overseen by a qualified dietitians, are paired with nutrition education with the goal of improving overall health, academic achievement and life outcomes.
New Zealand’s Healthy Lunches Programme, the paper argues, began with similarly wide aims to tackle inequality, but this scope has narrowed due to cost savings. It also requires meal plans to be checked by a nutritionist, albeit with a narrower number of requirements than its Brazilian counterpart.
Crunching the numbers
Funding sources are also compared in the report. Brazil’s scheme is funded by a corporate tax, with allocation for it enshrined into federal law. New Zealand’s programme comes from the general Ministry of Education budget, and any Government could alter or remove funding, as has already been seen.
Meals for students in Brazil are provided much more cheaply, at an average of between 0.13NZD and 0.83NZD per student, per day, compared to New Zealand’s 3-5NZD under the reduced funding. However, the report emphasises that raw costs cannot be fairly compared, due to vast differences in food costs and cost of living in the two nations.
Drawing conclusions
The report finds that New Zealand and Brazil are very different countries, with different contexts and needs around food and nutrition. The authors argue that while both have similar challenges, especially food insecurity for those living in poverty, the outcomes can be quite different. Whereas Brazil’s programme was instigated due to malnutrition causing children to be underweight, the same problems in New Zealand often contribute to childhood obesity.
The public response to these extremes can be quite different, potentially leading to Brazil’s public finding a funded school meal service to be a better use of tax money than those in Aoteaora. However, with a large volume of research showing success for school lunch programmes, the paper argues, New Zealand could learn from the benefits seen by countries such as Brazil.
