[BeckyBoop]

Nothing wrong with Iceland. Their prices on main branded food and home care products is very competitive. You can get free home delivery if you spend £25! Not even Tesco offers that. Shame their club card doesn’t allow you to collect Avios points.

[canucklad]

You surprise me BB…was sure you would have been a M&S girl 🙂

It’s not juuuuuusttttt food its……

[BeckyBoop]

Nope i’m a Sainsburys girl, sadly m&s are way too expensive 😉 x

[timothy222]

Whilst I won’t defend that some of the catering has been over the last few months below standard things are gradually improving. We have got rid of Flying Food group and have moved over to DOCO and the general consensus on my last Back to Back (JFK/JFK) was very positive, indeed I felt that the general quality of the food is improving especially out of the US.

Firstly, what was the problem with the cabin service? Please don’t state don’t get me started and then fail to follow through, secondly you have stated that you have completed 8 sectors in a combination of CW and First over the last few weeks. Both cabins that offer a pre flight dining service for your flight… If the food was that bad on the aircraft you did have the option to eat before getting on board the plane. BA also on the east coast do operate the sleeper service to allow people to maximise sleep.

BA does not have an endless pot of money to spend on catering that some other airlines have, and yes as I say, i noticed the gradual decline in the quality of the food over the last few years has stopped and the general quality is improving, indeed as Bettyboop states we do source as much local produce as possible on board.

As others state there are a choice of airlines flying the north atlantic, and I am sure if BA did serve food sourced from Iceland we would have more complaints.

Overcooked, is a difficult situation on the aircraft. The food comes on precooked, so it can be overcooked at the caterers, secondly the meals are loaded into the over where we cook them on a high heat for 25 mins at the least. We have to ‘t-Stick’ the food as part of health and safety and if the stick has not turned black after 5 seconds we have to carry on heating. I don’t actually think sometimes people realise that the cooking of the food can be complex.

I also resent the comment about the dogs breakfast. research and indeed working onboard proves that the majority of passengers do not want a breakfast after only a few hours sleep, most are happy with a cup of coffee or tea, indeed on my last JFK on the UD out of 20 only 1 person had anything to eat, also, BA does offer the arrivals lounge at LHR where you are able to shower and have a full breakfast.

[lloydah]

Reminds me of the time when friends organised a trip to Iceland for their 40th anniversary, bird life and geysers I understand. When asked by their cleaner what they were going to do the answer came back “OOOH, y’gonna have a party then?”

[Binman62]

As my alter ego would say

“Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it.”

[1nfrequent]

I’ve only done 4 CW flights this year but I have found the quality variable. In general, I try to go for the vegetarian option because that’s seems to be the most consistent offering and I have been genuinely impressed with the quality of it (and I speak as someone who doesn’t much like veggies normally).

I flew while the special Olympic menu was running and thought the fish pie was the most revolting thing I’ve ever seen on a plane – it honestly looked like sick on a plate with bonus peas in it. It didn’t taste much better. I’ve never thought much of the beef but it does tend to be a meat that everyone has different preferences for.

By contrast the smoked salmon is usually pretty good (although that should be simple to get right given what it is) and I like the wine selection (but then I’m the first to admit that I’m not a wine buff).

The breakfast isn’t all that though. I take timothy’s point about many people not wanting to eat when they wake up but if you do, you shouldn’t be penalised for it with a substandard soggy bacon bap. They really should be easy to get right.

I think it all comes down to the bugbear of consistency which I can well understand is difficult to get right when you’re 30,000 feet up with an air oven. I wonder if that could be overcome by cabin crew spotting when food is clearly not in the right condition before it’s served and offering an alternative or replacement (no doubt there’s a perfectly good reason why not – most likely due to the need to reduce weight by reducing the amount stocked).

1F

[millionsofmiles]

Regarding the “dog breakfast”.
There ARE in fact some people that want a breakfast and do not fly to somewhere to spend hours in an arrival lounge for a breakfast that they could have on board.
LH offers a quick continental bf up to 30 mins before landing or a full breakfast (hot, cold, eggs and so on) if you like. You can order before retirin for sleep.
THAT is the way.
And another remark: One poster said that BA cannot afford to spend more on food? If they cant spend sufficient money on catering, they shouldn’t offer premium classes at premium prices.

[Alasdair]

Is that how BA presents its food? On one tray with starter and cutlery all hidden in a napkin. Please tell me this is short haul. I have just come off a business class flight being fully laid up with my own bread basket and latte to follow. A tray is awfully retro… let alone Icelandic.

[LuganoPirate]

I recently ate lunch at a new eatery in London on the corner of Aldwych, same owner as Caprice but can’t remember the name. I paid about £60 a head for the food. If I calculate the cost of the ingredients, I doubt it came to much more than £10.

Did they buy it from Iceland? I think we should be told!

[canucklad]

iloyodah………

Monday morning blues, Tuesday morning brain now in gear…..

Just got you’re posti from yesterday…..DOH!

I don’t travel BA long haul,never mind premium but i would be very disappointed if AC invoked such feedback from it’s loyal customers Infidel

[BeckyBoop]

LP, restaurants as a rule of thumb have a 60% mark up on food.

Again if none of you are happy with the food offering on BA can I suggest then you fly a different airline -regardless of the route or cost. BA are not the only airline in the world.

[VintageKrug]

The food is perfectly satisfactory, and many have remarked how much it has improved in recent months.

I’ve never had a truly bad meal, and it’s easy to dine in the lounge in London, at some outstations pre-flight, or indeed use the Club Kitchen to cobble together some soup and a sandwich if you don’t like what is served, especially if you fly regularly.

The bowls are necessary to keep in the sauces, as sauce is a useful way of keeping food moist when heated up on board.

The cost of airline food is less in the ingredients and more in the logistics of delivering it in a secure and foodsafe way to the aircraft; everything has to be timed to avoid best before times being exceeded.

So a ham sandwich which may cost 30p in ingredients and retail for £2 in a shop, £5 in a restaurant, may cost BA very much more than that in total.

BA has increased the catering budget, and invested hugely in researching new flavours which work well on board.

Here posted on another site, is Greg5’s recent SEA-LHR Club World supper on a flight taken on 12 October, Olive Oil poached Hamachi with a salad of tomatoes and Asiagi cheese:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-G78sNtbYH58/UHhx-J9rfrI/AAAAAAAADFc/OJKDvkWlqWY/s720/photo.JPG

Looks pretty appetising to me.

[BeckyBoop]

VK & Hippocampus dont you think maybe its time BA increased the number of staff onboard to include a chef or food and beverage manager to oversee all food that is prepared in premium cabins before it is served?

[Cedric_Statherby]

I don’t think anyone should underestimate the challenge of serving food on airlines – good food, that is, not sandwiches. And the fact that much of the time it is done really very well does not hide what a difficult balancing act all airlines have to go through.

The issue is not just the cramped cooking area and limited facilities, but also that people’s taste-buds react differently at altitude: what works very well at ground level may not be so successful in a pressurised cabin (this is particularly a problem with wine selections I gather). Add in the need to prepare everything in advance and stow it on a plane for reheating and I am often surprised at how good food is.

It was not always thus and I remember Alitalia in the 1980s and early 1990s used to bake whole dishes of pasta onboard and then serve you from a big dish “just like Mamma did for the bambinos at home”. But those days have gone long ago.

I had a good friend once who was a catering manager on BA – we’re going back 20 years or so now. His job was at the final quality control and menu selection stage and BA literally flew him up to altitude to do the checks at 39,000 feet, to make sure that it worked in the air not only on the ground. And if BA were doing that 20 years ago I am sure they are still taking that much care now, and I am equally sure other airlines are too.

Ultimately, I think we the passengers need to be realistic in our expectations. We have a right to expect food not to be inedible, and it is reasonable to expect that it looks and tastes OK, but much beyond that is surely a bonus not an entitlement.

As for wine on planes, it never shows to its best at altitude, and I have not drunk on a plane for some time. As my doctor once said to me: “You can drink about 25 units a week of alcohol – why waste any of them on wine which is cheap or not at its best?” So I don’t, and I wait till I get home.

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