It is also going to happen on international flights. I flew from Shanghai to ORD yesterday in first class and had a terrible Hindu meal--no appetizer or desert and barely edible food. Hindu is almost always edible and sometimes really good.
That's why I usually pick that one!
The flight attendant came over to ask about my meal indicating that United had "changed caterers" since the merger, and there had been complaints about special meals. I added mine to her list. She said that most categories of special meals were going to be discontinued in First and Business. By the way, we had pretzel packages instead of nuts in First on this flight.
Something is off all around. My Int'l flights during May/June I got normal Hindu meals, no change from the past. Perhaps they are changing catering at certain stations and haven't gone through all of them. I did not get the typical yellow card with the meal out of IAD though.
What I'm suggesting is that it might be a PVG issue mixed in with Jeffrey's idiocy.