AIRLINE MEALS


better than they expected, and around a quarter perceived the food as low quality and worse than high street fast food chains. What’s more, 46% did not believe that the airlines cared about the quality of the food. Ease of consumption was rated quite highly as a


desired feature; and with almost half recognising that the meals had some degree of ease of consumption, it shows that this element is less of an issue but should still be a primary focus when designing menus. All that said, consumers are realistic and whilst 45% would like more choice and 34% suggested pre-flight options, it was recognised by more than a third that considering the challenges of feeding a full aircraft, the food is good, and this is something to build on.


Consumer feedback The process of cooking for and supplying a full aircraft is clearly complex and is not ideal for optimum food quality (Figure 2). Each step within the chain has a marked and detrimental impact on the food product and it is essential to consider the quality and the impact that these steps have and where possible minimise their impact. One of the key thoughts is to consider the final environment that the food will be consumed in, after all it is this unique emotional environment that will seal the success or failure of the meal. Design and choose meals that will withstand these extremes and simulate the environment as much as possible when doing so. This careful consideration of a passenger's needs and expectations is going to become increasingly important with the wider use of inflight wifi. The consumer has always been king, but never more so when consumer feedback is not only instant, but potentially global. The advent of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and the rise of online reviews has created many forums for ‘the crowd’ to collectively and openly discuss products, and their successes and failures. This is now going to present a never-before seen challenge to inflight catering providers. If the food fails to meet consumers’ expectations in any way, the world will see by how much before they’ve even landed. It will move from being anecdotal to immediate and this level of feedback is invaluable to the provider, but can also be their undoing. To counteract this, it has never been more important to include reviews of your catering


By its very definition - changing food


Long storage affects quality after cooking


Slow re-heat


Moisture migration


Ice disrupts structure


Re-heat control


Figure 2. Simplified Airline Food Delivery Process Flow Source: Leatherhead Food Research


options and undertake objective evaluation of the quality of the product at an ‘in-use’ setting. This may be testing products with truly independent consumer panels during the innovation process trials to ensure that true ‘in-use’ feedback is incorporated. Twitter isn’t just for the young, so you can be sure that if your product doesn’t meet the basic expectations of your passengers, negative comments can and will be instantly posted. This immediacy can lead to far more damning and instinctive feedback, unlike ‘the good old days’ when a complaint letter would have taken time to compose, and the limit of the action would be to not eat the product again. It is worth noting again that 11% of those


surveyed would actively avoid an airline if the food was bad yet the flight arrived on time, but 37% indicated they would tolerate a late arrival if the food was good. It is clearly worth getting the meal option right


and reviewing the inflight catering to deliver food that has been scientifically designed to meet passengers’ quality expectations and nutritional requirements. •


Hot storage


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