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A former Far North employee of school lunch provider Libelle Group claims there were warning signs the company was headed for bust prior to government changes and the provider’s liquidation last month.

The ex-staffer told the Northern Advocate that a payroll hack, redundancies, an allegation of unpaid rent, and rejected produce left in the sun at a community pantry, were evidence of red flags.

Libelle, Gilmores, and Compass (assuming the role of leader) formed a partnership, School Lunch Collective, which won the Coalition Government’s $85 million contract to provide cut-price meals to 466 schools in the free lunch scheme, Ka Ora, Ka Ako.

Before being placed into liquidation, Libelle had 500 staff and operated out of 15 locations that included Whangārei and the Far North, where it had provided lunches since the scheme was first introduced by the Labour Government in 2019.

Under Labour, Libelle had supplied lunches for $9 per head to 17,000 school children. It scaled up under the Coalition Government’s revamp to supply 125,000 lunches for $3 per head.

It reportedly went into liquidation owing more than $14 million to about 250 creditors. Compass has taken over providing Libelle’s share of the lunches.

The former Libelle worker, who did not want to be named, said she was sick of media reports that blamed the current Government for Libelle’s demise.

She said she was not a disgruntled ex-employee. She simply wanted the public to know her belief that Libelle - at least in the Far North - was struggling in its role even under the previous Government.

The quality of school lunches provided by the Libelle Group to Far North schools began to slip after March 2023 when the company moved to producing the meals at its centralised kitchen facility in Hamilton, a former worker claims. Photo / Yolisa Tswanya

“They put themselves in the crap long before this, and by providing a shitty product schools were dropping out,” she claimed.

She was concerned that something as important as school lunches had become a political point-scoring exercise in which the Libelle Group’s demise was being used as ammunition.

“I’m not a supporter of any party but I’m sick of Labour and others saying National ruined the school lunches.”

In her view, there were signs of trouble under the previous Government and considered that Libelle was given a free for all by Labour, having been awarded a contract worth millions of dollars.

Libelletook on more Far North schools after local provider Bells Produce, a company owned by Te Rūnanga o Te Rarawa, departed the scheme in March 2023 having accidentally served students at Kaitāia College raw chicken.

The woman said she had worked for both providers and despite the chicken incident believed Bells Produce had been superior. She supported calls by Northland school leaders to allow schools to return to local providers.

In her opinion the Labour Government’s expenditure on the school lunch scheme had essentially propped up Libelle and what she believed was the company’s “top-heavy” management structure.

The woman had seen a manager’s payslip, which she believed had been emailed to numerous staff in error in a type of “payroll hack”.

She was astounded by the high pay the manager was getting.

The ex-employee said there were four managers for the Far North - including a regional manager, an area manager, a kitchen manager, and a kitchen supervisor.

She claimed when schools began dropping out of the lunch scheme, managers kept their jobs while kitchen workers were made redundant.

School lunches in the Far North often ended up in an unrefrigerated community pataka in Kaitāia (as they did elsewhere around the country) becoming a food safety risk, a former Libelle Group worker claims. Photo of school lunches in pataka at Christchurch / supplied

Libelle moved production of its lunches to a multi-million dollar, purpose-built facility in Hamilton during March 2023. The shift meant meals were trucked to Kaitāia for heating and delivery.

The former employee criticised the change saying that in her view it caused the quality to drop and several schools to pull out of the scheme.

She claimed the landlord of the Awanui Hotel, where Libelle leased kitchen space for the Coalition Government contract, was heard one day complaining the company hadn’t paid its rent. When approached by the Northern Advocate, landlord Brad Jackson declined to comment.

The woman said she was aware a lot of leftover lunches were given by Libelle to the Far North Community Foodbank, who confirmed this was accurate. However, sometimes rejected lunches also ended up in a streetside pataka kai, which concerned her.

She believed it was a food safety risk for the community as the meals were perishable and sometimes in the sunfor unknown amounts of time.

The Northern Advocate tried to contact Libelle’s sole director Johannes Tietze for comment via numerous channels as well as his fellow shareholder Rochelle Tietze. Neither responded.

Sarah Curtis is a general news reporter for the Northern Advocate. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in journalism, most spent court reporting in Gisborne and on the East Coast. She is passionate about covering stories that make a difference, especially those involving environmental issues.