A Christchurch school has warned parents to watch for food poisoning symptoms after some students were given ‘rancid’ lunches through the Government school lunch programme.

Haeata Community Campus said the meals arrived on Monday and were later found to be contaminated.

Staff discovered that several students had already eaten parts of the food before the problem was identified.

Images taken at the school showed mince, potatoes and peas with visible mould.

Principal Peggy Burrows said the school had experienced a ‘significant health and safety breach.’

“It is unbelievable and unacceptable that this could happen to our children” she told chrislynchmedia.com.

Staff stopped handing out lunches immediately and checked bins, where they found discarded meals that suggested some had been eaten.

Compass Group returned to collect the remaining meals and, according to Burrows, told the school they would carry out a full inspection of the delivery to determine how widespread the contamination was.

While some students said their meals tasted normal, others said the food tasted unusual.

Ministry of Education, Operations and Integration manager Helen Hurst said they were investigating.

“We have been in touch with the school. There are no reports of student illness.

We have advised the school to monitor students, and any illness is to be reported to Health New Zealand.”

“We are working with MPI on this investigation.

No other school has reported any issues with todays lunches.”