GOVI is extremely proud to contribute to a praiseworthy initiative, recently announced by New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.

Within the framework of a youth programme, free lunches will be offered in New Zealand schools to children between 4 and 13 years of age. This pilot programme will benefit up to 30 schools in the first quarter of 2020, but will then target some 21,000 students in 120 centres as early as 2021.

Students of all beneficiary schools grow up in socio-economically disadvantaged circumstances, which often implies poor levels of nourishment. For this reason, this measure is an important step in the fight against food insecurity, an issue affecting one in five children in New Zealand.

The tender to implement the programme was won by the New Zealand company, Hireworx Ltd, which will deliver to the beneficiary schools mobile cold rooms for outdoor use, equipped with GOVI refrigeration units —which are provided by the local GOVI distributor, Thermo King New Zealand Ltd. This way, these schools will be able to refrigerate and preserve food for children’s free lunches, meeting the highest standards of quality and food safety.

One of the first shipments of mobile cold rooms for outdoor use for schools
in New Zealand.

For more information on this initiative, please check the article published on the New Zealand Government website: https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/overall-strategies-and-policies/wellbeing-in-education/free-and-healthy-school-lunches/