Chris Lynch: Food Safety pushes back again after principal disputed cause of mouldy lunches

New Zealand Food Safety has issued a new statement on the mouldy lunches at Haeata Community Campus, reiterating that the evidence points to a human error at the school as the most likely cause.

New Zealand Food Safety is a unit of the Ministry for Primary Industries.

The follow up statement has been released after the school’s principal continued to publicly suggest the problem lay with the provider, appearing on multiple media outlets this morning.

Peggy Burrows also accused the outcome of the New Zealand Food Safety investigation of being “political expedient” and said CCTV footage proved the provider was in the wrong.

Haeata Community Campus Principal Dr Peggy Burrows

However, New Zealand Food Safety deputy director general Vincent Arbuckle released another statement late this afternoon, saying “The weight of evidence suggests that the contaminated food being distributed to students was a result of a human error at the school.

“We think it likely this occurred during the school’s distribution of the lunches.”

“The number of boxes going in and out of the school on any given day does not provide sufficient evidence that all of the leftover lunches are accounted for in this case.

“This is because the CCTV footage we reviewed does not tell us the contents of the boxes or whether they were the same boxes.”

He said staff had told investigators the school keeps an unknown number of boxes for its own internal distribution.

“For example, last Thursday eight boxes were delivered and nine were collected.

“Staff at the school also told us some boxes are used to deliver lunches to younger students, while some are left in the school’s cafeteria where older students can help themselves.

“Since all of the contaminated lunches were from boxes in the cafeteria, we think it most likely that some food intended for consumption last week was mistakenly made available on Monday.”

He said other schools received the same meals from the same distribution centre on the same day and no other complaints were received.

“Our investigation is continuing, and we are happy to work with the school on its processes.”

Broadcaster Chris Lynch is an award winning journalist who also produces Christchurch news and video content for domestic and international companies. This article was originally published by Chris Lynch Media and is published here with kind permission.