I flew back from Edinburgh to Newark this past Sunday in coach due to GPU failure. When breakfast was served, I noticed on package cover that the food was prepared back in September 2017 by a company in Italy and it has a shelf time until September 2018. Apparently this is kind of frozen/preserved food (though I could not tell the preservatives used from the package cover). I always thought that even economy class on international routes got horrible food, but it is some basic food prepared with fresh (?) ingredients on the day of departure or maybe one or two days prior to the departure. I knew Lufthansa and KLM serve this kind of frozen/preserved food with long shelf time on their European routes in coach class, but this is something new to me for United. This also makes me wonder whether it is Lufthansa who provided catering service for United at Edinburgh, since I noticed the fruit juice boxes on this flight are the German brand ALBI and that the little bottle water we got in coach class is also made in Germany.

Anyone have noticed this before or thoughts?

Breakfast


Water bottle from Germany


Package cover for breakfast