BaxterStorey scores 2/5 hygiene rating for some British Airways lounges

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• Jurgen Fenney says:

  24 Sep24 September 07:13

  To be honest I am not surprised as our company Sodexo who do the food at Virgin clubhouses have been awarded BA short haul winter menu onboard food.

• Rich says:

  24 Sep24 September 07:22

  Interestingly the BA Staff Restaurants at T5 both scored 5 out of 5!

  • BAnon says:

    24 Sep24 September 14:32

    As of July, Baxter Storey are also the careers for the canteen at Waterside – something which isn’t universally popular with BA staff.

    I should point out that this has more to do with reduced value-for-money than hygiene, but the concept of profit maximisation may perhaps be the common factor.

• Mark says:

  24 Sep24 September 07:42

  The Chinese, fish and chip and what looks like a grotty burger / kebab house round the corner from us all rate as 5 and are actually all very nice.

  An Indian restaurant in the city where I live recently closed after someone (oops) posted on fb that it had a zero rating!

  I think its wrong that the establishments DON’T have to display the rating if they don’t want too. It should be a legal requirement to display it and any score 2 or below should be given 6 months to improve their score or face closure.

• Paul says:

  24 Sep24 September 07:56

  This is a pretty poor result particularly for the first class and Concorde lounges and frankly needs as wide an audience as possible to ensure change is brought about. My own experience of the lounges since the changes had been very mixed but it has has clearly been downgraded / cheapened and is a shadow of the previous offerings.
  Moreover food safety should be no less important to BA than flight safety. You cannot imagine a score of 2 for flight safety ever being acceptable to passengers or indeed any responsible airline board or leadership team. I would expect no less a reaction from them over food safety and hope they will react positively and immediately to this result.

  Apparently many other well known London restaurants have a similar score not that that should be a reason to ignore this.

  • callum says:

    24 Sep24 September 10:22

    Of course flight safety should be far more important than food hygiene! As bad as it sounds, I doubt many people have been made ill by the food there -and if they have it would be very mild. A safety rating of 40% on an aircraft however means possible death. I’d take food poisoning over a plane crash any day!

• Will says:

  24 Sep24 September 10:36

  I think the real issue here is – how difficult is it to be excellent at food hygiene? It essentially shows a complete pack of care by the staff and a failure to address it by the management. Compared to the cost of opening and running a lounge sorting the hygiene is peanuts.

  • Rob says:

    24 Sep24 September 10:46

    Airlines have odd views of fixed vs variable costs, though. You could ask why anyone would spend $200m on a plane and then skimp on the catering to the extent that people don’t want to fly it.

    What costs are actually variable for BA? Planes, no (fixed finance deals). Fuel, no. Staff, no as CAA dictates crew numbers and UK law stops random firing of higher paid old school crew.

    Stuff like inflight and lounge catering is a teeny tiny percentage of BA expenditure but is actually something they can attack.

  • Rob says:

    24 Sep24 September 11:48

    My local church runs a one-woman cafe using an improvised kitchen in a corner of their porch. That has a 5-star rating.

    • Will says:

      24 Sep24 September 18:28

      That’s exactly what I’m getting at, they. Just need to make sure people are trained properly and carry out the correct training to ensure hygiene standards are high. They already pay a small army of staff to run around the lounges, I’m literally gasping to think how the poorly things are working behind the scenes and nobody is questioning it as its happening!

• GUWonder says:

  24 Sep24 September 11:18

  How was the FT thread title changed? Apparently it has gotten some BAttention.

  • Rob says:

    24 Sep24 September 11:46

    I would be repeating an (allegedly) libellous statement if I told you which would see me in court behind Internet Brands.

    I will need to delete any further comments which discuss this aspect.

• Lady London says:

  24 Sep24 September 13:43

  No, I’ve never seen a venue with a rating of “2” before. And I’ve certainly never eaten in one.

  Thank heaven the disgusting appearance of the buffet food – and the shudders biscuits being handled directly from a jar gave me – have always put me off eating anything there.

  I’ve never had an issue eating from a buffet with reasonable caution in a number of other lounges though, notably those provided in various lounges around the world by SQ.

  Does anyone think this will lead to the displacement of Baxter Storey from the BA lounges? Even then, does anyone think it is BA’s intention to provide better a higher food quality offering? Even before Baxter Storey, for me the food ranged on the spectrum between unappetising and offputting.

• whiskerxx says:

  24 Sep24 September 17:27

  Lady London – I doubt you would be aware of the Food Hygiene Ratings for the places you have eaten at. As a previous poster has mentioned, there has been no requirement for establishments to display these ratings. This will change in Wales in November, and it will become a requirement. Its likely that ratings for premises inspected in the past year or so will now be available to view on the internet.
  Callum – there are generally excellent safety standards in the airline industry, but perhaps not so great in the food industry. That’s why statistically, you are far more likely to die from food poisoning than in a plane crash! With that in mind, everyone using the First Class Lounge and Concorde room should be concerned about what they eat and drink!
  n.b. food safety issues are not necessarily related to the taste and appearance of what you eat, nor the cost of ingredients. More to do with poor procedures, poor hygiene, poor storage and stock rotation and general bad practice.
  A two rating is indeed a cause for concern. Take your own sandwiches!!

  • callum says:

    25 Sep25 September 15:29

    I’m also far more likely to eat food than get on a plane. Comparing statistics like that is meaningless!

    I do think its a cause for concern (image wise anyway, it wouldn’t stop me eating there and the hysteria across here and flyer talk about someone else possibly touching a biscuit before you is beyond absurd), just not on parity with aircraft safety!

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