A Christchurch principal has rejected New Zealand Food Safety’s official findings into the mouldy school lunches incident, claiming the conclusion blaming the school was “politically expedient” and insisting investigators have “visual evidence on tape” that contradicts the outcome.

Haeata Community Campus principal Dr Peggy Burrow’s allegation comes despite New Zealand Food Safety strengthening its own language late last night, following her rejection, saying it is more than likely the meals became unsafe after being left unrefrigerated at the school before they were given to students on Monday.

Students from Year 1 to 13 had already received portions of the food when a teacher discovered the meals were off. The lunches were part of the government funded school lunch programme.

New Zealand Food Safety deputy director general Vince Arbuckle told chrislynchmedia.com that investigators had visited both Compass Group and the school before reaching their conclusion.

In the updated statement provided late last night, Arbuckle said “Our investigation found it is more than likely that the issue arose from human error at the school.

“The deterioration of the affected meals likely happened because they were delivered the previous Thursday, remained at the school without refrigeration, and then were accidentally re served to students alongside fresh meals that arrived on Monday.

“We note that on the day of the complaint there were 15 other schools that received meals from the same distribution centre and we received no other complaints.”

ACT Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour said the principal’s new allegation was “extraordinary”.

Seymour said the outcome was “always the likely outcome” and criticised what he described as unverified reporting from some outlets like RNZ, before any evidence was examined.

He said “journalism is supposed to apply critical thinking, not simply act as a megaphone for whoever is most eager to talk to the media.”

Haeata Community Campus principal Dr Peggy Burrows told chrislynchmedia.com she was “perplexed” by the official findings and intends to challenge them.

“Just to set the record straight, at the moment as principal of Haeata Community Campus I am interested in looking at a systems failure that clearly occurred.

“The contract for the provision of school lunches at Haeata Community Campus is held by the Compass Group.

“On Thursday last week our camera footage clearly shows that the van driver from the Compass Group delivered eight caraban containers each holding around 20 punnets of lunch meals to the school.

“Eight were delivered between 9am and 9.30am on Thursday and eight were picked up by the same van driver around about 2 o’clock on Thursday. Nothing was left behind at that time.

“Friday was a teacher only day so no lunches were delivered. On Monday the same van driver from the Compass Group is clearly seen on the cameras delivering nine caraban containers. There is video footage of the staff discovering multiple contaminated meals in multiple carabans after that delivery.

“We immediately recalled all lunches at that time, called the supervisor from the Compass Group. She and the van driver arrived within half an hour and they collected all nine caraban and took them off site to investigate.

“At no time did Haeata reheat food, because we simply do not have the facility to do so. At no time did Haeata store food or provide food to our students, because the food provision is contracted to the Compass Group.

“As principal of Haeata my only concern is to investigate this significant system failure. I have no desire to enter into a personal conversation with the Deputy Prime Minister or Associate Minister of Education over this matter.

“Food Safety officers arrived on site today from MPI and viewed the video footage, so I am perplexed at the MPI statement and will be querying it tomorrow with the investigators.

“I am happy to talk about the obligation the Compass Group hold with regard to the contract they have signed with the Ministry of Education to provide quality food to Haeata Community Campus.

“Yesterday they were clearly in breach of their contractual obligations and that is the matter under discussion at this time and not the Minister’s view or opinion of me.”

Seymour said the suggestion that officials allowed political influence to shape their findings was not credible.

“It is a pretty extraordinary statement that Food Safety NZ are now being accused of putting politics ahead of food safety,” he said.

He said any further challenge should be directed back to investigators.

“If she feels the information she presented was not properly considered then she should talk to them. There is always a possibility something else will be found, but it is not sounding very likely.”