I don't think BA undercaters specific meals based on cost; in fact, I doubt there are large differentials between one meal and another. What it does, and keeps on doing, is misjudging the taste of its passengers.

One key example was the guinea fowl-gate. I personally adore guinea fowls. My late mother did a fantastic one and the dish was amazing on board. However, people didn't know that a fowl is a glorified chicken and that created non-stop issues. Similarly, when I briefly was volunteered to fly as crew, I did a LOS in Club where we had a 20% loading of chicken and a hell of a lot of pasta, fish and something else quite pretentious. Ran out of the chicken by row 3 of Club and by the time we got to the end we were being called names, told we were being racist and so on because of the lack of chicken.

My wish is that BA learned from Delta and stopped trying to be fancy. More often than not what the chefs come up with will appeal the Waitrose crowd but will be utterly disgusting to everyone in the world.