Do&Co win massive catering deal (from 2020) for BA in LHR and IB & I2 in MAD
 

Worthy of its own thread and part of it is currently buried in New Club World Service 2017 - catering and bedding - experiences and reactions

High grade Austrian caterer Do&Co win a 10 year catering contract from spring 2020 to supply BA, Iberia and Iberia Express from their respective hubs in London Heathrow and Madrid.

In the linked thread above, Newcrest gets the LGW contact for BA.

So will the quality and taste of the catering improve dramatically? Either way, good move with Do&Co having a really good rep.

Some links (in German)
- https://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaf...ue-Mitarbeiter

Timing might be questionable but Do&Co need to build vastly larger kitchens and hire thousands more staff in preparation for taking on this contract. Why does it take until spring 2020?

... (slightly related but off the main topic)
Well, I would urge people to search for what happened with Asiana Airlines after it ditched LSG as its caterer, which involved murky bribe requests, the chairman of the airline/parent company, and ultimately tragic consequences. Either way, Asiana had weeks of flights without catered food especially on long haul after a chaotic change in catering supplier and unfortunate events.

Do&Co's LHR kitchen will be familiar to many here, it's over the road from the Hilton Garden Inn at Hatton Cross. Currently it provides the shorthaul catering and the JFK service. I'm guessing the addition of all of longhaul and Iberia will add so much extra workload that it will need to add to the company's premises.

Newrest - who have a chequered history in terms of management buy-outs, already supply BACF / LCY from their Barking kitchen. They don't have a production facility in the LGW area so I presume they too are going to create one near there - I'm not sure it's a great idea to send trucks from their LHR facility at Poyle (near T5) around the M25 every day.

The big losers here are Alpha catering, who currently do LGW's short and longhaul (and on shorthaul it wasn't as good as LHR frankly). Their owner is dnata. And Gate Gourmet, who do longhaul LHR apart from JFK.

Great ... LGW remains in the 2nd Division :(

Would Gate Gourmet sell some facilities to Do&Co?

Glass half full perspective perhaps. We rarely hear complaints about BACF's LCY and STN catering, if anything they cram too much food on to their trays.

I always thought the JER breakfast was good, albeit a little rushed.

or off it!! The other day, I saw the vegetarian meal had a tomato focaccia type thing which had to be brought separately as it just could not possibly fit on the tray!

If people on TUPE list are the one's deciding how much crap to put in to make a salad, the product is still going to be same ? The packaging changes, the menu changes, but the taste stays the same ? Or maybe will get 2 cherry tomatoes instead of 1.

I expect that much like when the lounge contracts changed hands, staff and premises will be transferred over too. It's a huge job and it leaves Gate Gourmet with a massive amount of capacity they no longer need.

Whether it is good for the passenger or not really comes down to whether there is more money being spent than in the previous one, details none of us will likely ever know.

You would hope that Do and Co would only take this on if they think they are going to be able to produce food to their current standards - it would be very damaging to their brand if they start churning out inferior rubbish, although I guess they could take the BA approach that a quick buck is more important than.

That is a good point, have BA actually said anything about the budget.

Do&Co do all the catering for TK which is normally very good.