The founder of a Tasmanian school lunch program is pushing for its expansion across Australia, as nutrition experts warn food insecurity is affecting students’ ability to learn.
Australia remains one of the few high-income countries in the world that does not provide children with a free meal at school each day, with countries such as Japan, Sweden, and Estonia already running universal school lunch programs.
Founded by Julie Dunbabin in 2020, the School Food Matters program currently serves about 21,500 cooked meals each week across 60 public schools in Tasmania, largely funded by the state government. The Tasmanian government has invested about $14.6 million over the past two years to support the program.
Speaking as the keynote speaker at a national school food summit in Hobart last Monday, Dunbabin called on the federal government to back a nationwide rollout before roughly 150 delegates from across the country, ABC News reported.
“That’s the dream, and that’s what we’ll be calling for action on at the end of the day,” she said. “What Tasmania has done is develop a very strong role model [for other states] to copy.”
Parent co-payments on the table
Each meal costs about $10 to prepare, covering ingredients, staffing, delivery, and equipment. Dunbabin said a national scheme would likely require parents to contribute about $5 per meal to remain sustainable.
“For sustainability, parent co-payment is going to be really crucial,” she said. “It’s not the government’s job to pay for everything, so I think that having that buy-in from families would be such a positive thing, and it happens everywhere else.”
Nutrition and learning at stake
Katherine Kent, a senior lecturer in nutrition and dietetics at the University of Wollongong, said the nutritional gap in many students’ lunchboxes was affecting learning outcomes.
“We know that parents are really struggling to put food into the lunch box that is healthy and nutritious,” Kent said. “There’s a real opportunity for a school lunch program to ensure students have at least one nutritious meal per day.”
Miriam Williams, of Macquarie University and the Community Economies Institute, added that the stakes were high given how much of children’s daily diet is consumed at school.
“One third of all meals are consumed at school for children, and the food that we eat … is integral for our ability to function well in the classroom,” Williams said.
Kent cautioned that any program must ensure universal access, warning lower-income families – those most in need – should not be excluded if a co-payment model is adopted. She called for a coordinated government approach, noting food insecurity in schools was “falling through the policy gaps”.
School Food Matters executive officer Kirsty Grierson said the organisation remains focused on refining its Tasmanian operations for now, with no immediate plans to introduce parent co-payments.
“We’re very much focused on what is happening in Tasmania and really refining the program,” Grierson said.