After the mid trimester break Nexus will be ditching feature news for a new concept called Thesis where we take a more in depth and researched approach to news that is important to you. However, that deadline didn’t seem quick enough for our Senior ‘Old Man’ Correspondent James Raffan who wanted to take a few minutes to tell you Nexus views on the failure of the School Lunch Programme. When it started with “Fuck David Seymour” we just let him go. 

Fuck David Seymour! This isn’t a political position you have to feel the vitriol in your soul. By any objective measure his Trumpian promise to deliver the “best food” at competitive prices has been an objective failure. And this isn’t political. I don’t care if you vote for National or ACT or the Greens. This is about a programme that was working, that was feeding kids, which was resulting in better test scores.  And then Seymour decided to break it so he could say it was broken and couldn’t be done. Meanwhile Luxon in league with Big Marmite “suggested you make your kid a sandwich and an apple” You’re too bald to pretend to be Marie Antoinette. 

Instead of giving you the litany of issues around lack of delivery, lack of consistency, burnt plastic, and that time Seymour complained that we were all Nitpicking because LUNCH had only sent one kid to an A and E with severe burns  Nexus wants to present a central Thesis to you so here it is…. 

TODAY’S THESIS IS THAT FOR FIVE DOLLARS YOU CAN MAKE A LUNCH THAT IS GOOD AND CRUCIALLY SENDS NO ONE TO HOSPITAL PROVIDED YOU BOTH WANT IT TO WORK AND DON’T HAVE A PROFIT MARGIN AS A PRIORITY OVER FEEDING KIDS. 

So here is how we plan to prove it. 

    1. Talk to an expert. Specifically, the venues manager for the WSU and the Don TaylaDee Kelly who feeds Rugby, Football and Cricket teams every week and still runs the cheapest food prices on campus. 

 

    1. Buy Nexus Lunch. They can have whatever they want as long as it is no more than $5 

 

    1. Let a professional do it and see what we can create. 

And before anyone @’s me (Yell@nexusmag.co.nz) I know the cost of the Seymour meals are about $3.75 per unit but that is based on economies of scale and them cooking thousands. It also doesn’t include the thousands of dollars’ worth of therapy bills from the time the plastic-coated rice burnt your mouth. So, five dollars is reasonable. 

The Don of the Don - TaylaDee Kelly

You are the Manager of Union at the Don and all of WSU’s Catering and Venue support. How important is low-cost food options to you? Massively important, rent has gone up so much faster than allowances and general student income and we need food not only to survive but thrive. Nutritious food is key to healthy cognitive function and social skills, both of which are large factors in a successful time at University. Studies show decreased memory, empathy and concentration in people who don’t get enough food. 

What are the ranges and prices for our students to eat at Union @ The Don? Well, sadly, I had to put the prices up this year, but it was part of an ongoing plan to raise the prices every three years to keep up with costs, but also to provide some consistency across a 3-year study period. Our food menu now ranges from $4 Fries to $7 Burgers or an $8 changing limited menu. It also helps that we have a fantastic Head Chef and Catering Manager in Suneha Raju who can create culinary perfection at a low price point  

In your role you cater for sports teams from University Rugby to Star Cricket, what is the average cost per head and what do those meals consist of? We aim to do these meals at $5+gst. We have a basic method that we use to achieve this based on feeding 50 people at time. We either increase or decrease based on bookings. Per 50 people a meal looks like 4 -5kg meat, 10 + kg vegetables, starch (rice/pasta/noods) and then extras. Extras is sauces, seasonings, oil and all the other little shit we buy in bulk and keep on hand in the pantry.  

At those prices you probably aren’t making a profit on the catering side so how important is it that people are also buying drinks over the bar? Nope, there’s very little margin for profit or error, any extra money mostly just goes to consumables like serviettes. Our profit margin is all in drinks, and it’s carefully calculated. We’re lucky enough to not have the same overheads that other businesses do but we still pay thousands each year in licensing, training, maintenance etc. Liquor licensing also impacts how we price and promote drinks inside and outside of the venue. The wee bit of profit we manage to scrape together covers staff wages, goes back into the venue via appliance upgrades, or into sponsorships for clubs. 

What is Union at the SUB? It’s our way of bringing students cheap bakery style lunches without the hike over to the Don. Starting on Tuesdays during teaching weeks and we’ll expand if you show us that’s what you want 

 What is Union @ Your Place? We are so practiced at making cheap wholesome meals we thought we’d try freezing them for students. They can buy them at Union at the Sub, and we also supply them to Advocacy’s Kai Cupboard. 

NEXUS BUYS LUNCH 

So that is how adults running a student first business do it but what about our slightly stoned, possibly drunk army of first- and second-year editors who read catcher in the rye and signed up here? Well, our boss Dave generously gave them all $5 and I asked them to do one thing, spend it on food and answer the following questions: 

A. Is it enough for Lunch 

B. What did it cost? 

C. Does it taste of plastic? 

D. Did it burn you or send you to the emergency room? 

Honestly if C and D are both NO then Seymour is going to look fucking Stupid  

 

WHAT ABOUT LETTING A PRO DO IT? 

The Don got a little lucky with their head chef and Catering Manager Suneha Raju and when we said to her and Tayla “James wants to point out that David Seymour is a cunt can you make some food please” Their response wasn’t just to feed Nexus but to create a whole new programme called Union @ Your Place and make the Nexus staff the Guinea pigs for a series of $5 Take home frozen meals that you can reheat ensuring that neither Joe nor Toby will cook again during their undergrad. 

The plan is that each week there will be some new Union @ Your Place frozen meals available at the Don and the Basement pop up and while the Students’ Union intends to make money from it the important thing is they don’t make anyone’s life more difficult. 

 

DYLAN

UNIMART 

BIG BEN PIE (BUTTER CHICKEN) – $4.50 

TOMATO SAUCE PACKET – 50c 

A. I live off Butter Chicken Pies.

B. The Big Ben pie cost $4.50, and the tomato sauce used up the leftover 50 cents.  

C. Big Ben Pies usually taste like rubber but the unimart has magic powers that enhance the taste of everything in there. (Sponsor Me)  

D. It could have been hotter. That’s why I got the sauce. I ended up just spilling the sauce on my jeans. 

STIEN

(He forgot to get a photo)

BONGO SUSHI

One avocado roll and one vegetarian slice. 

A. $4, saved a dollar 

B. Yeah, if you wanna be a skinny queen (Bouns points to the health vibe) 

C. Nope. Didn’t splurge on any of the fish options 
D. Nope, but I should have spent more time looking to spend the full amounts, Or I should’ve waited for the end of day discounts packs.

TOBY

FOUR SQUARE

SAUSAGE ROLLS HOT

A. What was the cost? $5

B. Just, maybe with a beer. 

C. More pet food. 

D. Not yet but my stomach hurts. 

TOBY V.2.

An “8.6 BLACK INTENSE STOUT BEER Alc 7.9% Vol. IMPORTED FROM HOLLAND” 

A. $4.99 so not bad for 3.1 standards 

B. Yes. Helps get through that shitty compulsory paper. 

C. Fuck no, picture waterfalls and tall snow-capped mountains. 

D. Do I look like a light weight? (EDITORS NOTE – YES)

LANS

NAMASTE

Hot chips with butter chicken sauce 

A. $4 

B. Definitely, it’s my lunch of choice when on campus 

C. Only if plastic was delicious and tasted nothing like plastic 

D. Only for a second because I was far too eager putting the first chip in my mouth 

JASMINE

MCDONALDS

Small Chips and Frozen Sprite

A. Fuck no. But it’s probably the best fast-feed a Coeliac can do under $5. 

B. $4.70 

C. Most of my food does. 

D. Thankfully, no. 

CARA

SAI BAKERY AND CAFE

A Single bakery sausage roll

A. Hell nah, it’s a single sausage roll in 2025, so it’s mostly pastry 

B. $4.50, I couldn’t even find a 50c tomato sauce. 

C. Nah, it was good, fresh out of the pie warmer and made this morning 

D. Not quite but there was a risk with all the flaky pastry 

MAIA AND NINA

MADE

Ice creams

A. Definitely not, but it serves as a great sweet treat post lunch  

B. $5 exactly  

C. Not at all, although it’s extremely overpriced for a tiny ice cream, the beautiful taste made up for it.  

D. Thankfully it did not 

  1.  

JOE AND RUBY

PAK’N’SAVE

Delectable chicken dish

A. What did it cost? $9.30 for two servings ($2.50 for two chicken portions is unheard of, and likely due to the green tinge) 

B. Does it taster of plastic? No, but chicken, rice and frozen veges every day is enough to make a man go insane 

C. Did it burn you? No, believe it or not i know how to cook. 

D. Not yet, but there is a foreboding feeling in my stomach tho: Also likely due to the green tinge 

IN CONCLUSION 

What did we learn today? 

Well, it’s possible to make good food, nutritious food, and profitable food you just can’t do it all at once and not in bulk. The issue here was that when it comes to vulnerable children most of us would have ditched profit in favour of the other two. The fact that Su and TaylaDee can do it at the Don for our students every day is testament to the balancing act that is making enough money to pay staff but not much more. Left to their own devices we figured out that one or two of our writers were smart enough to pool their money and create something good but Dylan and Toby living on $5 a day would have liver and kidney damage in a week. Also no one went to Sue’s Kitchen which our President swears is the best and cheapest option of them all. 

But really what we learned was that David Seymour is a frothing man child who decided to petulantly break something that was working only to rebuild it badly and spin the claim that it can’t work. It is the world’s oldest grift from a moron. 

Join us next time when we ask “Can Nexus be printed on smaller type to really annoy old people.”  

THE END