CATERING TRENDS
He highlights the range of options offered by Oakfields, ranging from frozen hot meals to package meals and hot snacks brokerage, produced centrally off-airport and standardised for distribution across Europe or the US as an example of how brands and products will adapt. “The future is going to demand many more modular concept options, products that are easy to load, easy to use and based on components which can be Even simple used in many varied ways.”
work for them. We now have an in-house talent management programme which means we can monitor the assets that we have.” He expects the trend for BoB to continue but doesn’t see it as a threat: “The trend for retail onboard has migrated from low cost carriers to legacy carriers, most notably with British Airways’ decision to move to a BoB service for its short haul Economy passengers. This was a bold move and a correct decision. British Airways will not be the last company to do this and I think the next step will be changes can be buy-on-board for long haul complex to deliver, and our routes.” While that may biggest challenges are Focus on food shock some, he insists: “A around the systems to At DNATA, senior vp strong and well-executed support the emerging catering, Robin Padgett, BoB programme can add complexities says it is critical that in value. Charter airlines responding to change are the unsung caterers don’t forget the key issue is food. “We have heroes of buy-on-board. We’ve been to get back to the food. We have 500 chefs across doing it for a long time with them and 15 countries and spent last year trying to really we have the brochures, POS systems understand their skills and flexibility. They have a lot and other tools needed to do it well. of transferable skills. Our only mistake is not pitching “We’re going back to basics and putting culinary it more aggressively to push more skills and expertise at the heart of what we do. airlines to consider it. Looking forward For instance, Chinese airlines are expanding into we’d like to expand our BoB offering Europe and we have Chinese chefs in other areas geographically too. DNATA will continue of the world with transferrable skills which could to grow organically and through acquisitions. onboardhospitality.com
31
Above from left: Customers increasingly want more information about their food; trends on the ground must go into the air, including the trend for healthy eating. Overleaf: Flying Food Group caters for flyers demanding fresh, healthy food