Genuine surprise as BA ditches its caterers for the best in the business

It is fair to say that the HFP view so far on the promises of major improvements in Club World business class is sceptical.

It has, after all, taken a year to roll out a new blanket across the network.  BA couldn’t even get that right, as the original batch was apparently the same colour as the aircraft carpets and had to be scrapped as a trip hazard ….

Yesterday, however, came some very interesting news.

British Airways is ditching its current caterers.  This means goodbye to Gate Gourmet and DHL at Heathrow and Alpha at Gatwick, although Gate Gourmet will continue to provide inbound catering on some routes.

Here is the shocker.  The Heathrow contract has been given to DO&CO.  If you’ve never heard of DO&CO, they are effectively the Mercedes / BMW of the airport catering world.  They are responsible for catering on Austrian Airlines which is the best regarded long-haul European airline for business class food.

DO&CO was already providing the catering on the New York JFK and Chicago routes but did not have the capacity at Heathrow to do more.  This new contract launches in 2020 and presumably runs long enough to justify DO&CO investing in new facilities.  In reality they may end up buying the current Gate Gourmet operation.

(EDIT: we now know that this is a 10 year contract and includes Madrid-based catering for Iberia too.)

When British Airways originally launched its upgraded Club World catering proposition – you may remember Anika’s lengthy article on the press launch which involved a specially chartered aircraft – the food they presented to the media was DO&CO.

There was an implication that DO&CO was taking over the entire operation.  It came as a bit of a shock, a few months later, to realise that – on routes apart from JFK and Chicago – the new Club World catering was generally the same old Gate Gourmet stuff on fancier plates.

Of course DO&CO can only work with the money that British Airways is prepared to spend, but it would be odd to bring in a high-end caterer and then not give them the money they need to do a proper job.

Over at Gatwick, catering is being taken over by Newrest.  Newrest currently supplies catering at London City for CityFlyer and inbound from Santiago, Lima, San Jose, Accra, Lagos, Cape Town and Johannesburg.

As usual, the proof of the Club World pudding will be in the eating, but this is positive news.