LH Regional Business Catering [changed in February 2025]
 

just about the time

Tasting Heimat just wasn't a great invention and I am glad it will be gone soon. But then again, it's LHG and we were all looking forward to a new caterer at the FCT and now wish we could get the old one back ...

When I was in London on the weekend of the King's coronation, I saw people with signs that said "not my King" and, slightly tipsy, had the devilish idea to get myself a t-shirt for my next LH J-flight that says "not my Heimat" ;)

I found Taste of Heimat to have been an improvement at the very beginning. I suspect we can expect similar cycle, catering gets better for the first season, then inevitably cost cutting shows up and two years later we are here again wishing the catering gets revamped.

The other option is to keep it consistently decent, commensurate with the higher price of a business class ticket, and offer a proper product. It's not a miracle if they think they're going to be the most important airline in Europe. Business people will gradually shift over to the low cost carriers and just pay for the services need. The day LH wake up, it's going to be too late.

That's to be feared. Will then go back to Y for short hops and spend the money for really decent food on the ground before/after the flight.

I missed this update originally. What a relief.

Even BA has significantly better short haul C catering these days, and usually 3 choices! (And it’s rare I have anything good to say about BA..!)

Actually, short haul catering of London Airways has been among the better ones in Europe for quite a while.

LH should try to offer a continental alternative of similar quality.

This will not change until the top management of the group will change. The current thinking, right or wrong, is that there is no need to substantially improve shorthaul J offering. As long as it's not substantially worse than competition, and as long as it is demonstrably better than Y (the debatable proposition that "free" J catering is ipso facto better than what you could pay for by savings from the price difference in Y aside), this thinking will not change.

For that matter, not having any particular interest in LH as investor or as regular premium flyer, I do agree with them that there is 0 reason to consider own Y as competition.

You might go for Y and spend the savings either on BoB or more usefully on-ground, but 99.99% of short-haul J pax will simply not take this option into consideration, because they either connect into long-haul J/F (and as such don't have the option of taking a connector in Y) or they will be buying J short-haul anyway (the reason being, whether because that's what their company travel policy gives them, because they are wealthy and don't care to travel in Y, or because they want the miles)

Unless you're in row 3 out of 6 row J and they only have (dry) pasta left.

Don’t think that’s true, as I know quite a few who would do that. With status, the main differences are the meal and the empty middle seat. Short haul exit seats and BOB can be a good alternative to J with tasting Heimat.

I hope you are right, for both our sakes. But I am afraid you are not.

That apple is most of the time the last remaining eatable thing on board. So no, let is stay.

As mentioned above the 'Heimat' concept will retire at the end of the summer schedule.

It is Months until the end of October …..

Looking forward to the change, but I agree with many here and hope they keep the apples!

I hope that the new meal concept will be better. However I had great salmon appetizer served with the chocolate cake on my recent CRJ flight from MUC to LJU after a dozen of Heimat meals which where not great at all.

Regards DC10

Austrian seems to offer good quality meals with Do&Co (and British Airways certainly does too), so that would be the obvious solution to this Tasting Heimat rubbish. It’ll come down to cost though, so I’m not holding my breath.

Yes, OS, LX & BA are currently better than the Heimat debacle, any other airline in Europe has worse in J ?

AZ is better for sure. Don’t know about AF.
LG (Luxair) is pretty grim, maybe on-par.
KM (Air Malta) tiny airline going bankrupt but has a 3 course hot meal on real plates with a tablecloth and champagne on FRA/MUC-MLA and you can even use the LH lounges and get M&M award miles so… 🤷🏻‍♂️

Air France and KLM. Neither offers hot meals regardless of flight length (which means you could be flying from Paris to Bucharest with just a cold plate). At least Air France do use proper crockery though - KLM offers the rightly-maligned “Wanders Box” and wooden cutlery. See below the shocker of a breakfast I had flying from Budapest to Amsterdam last year:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...85789353c.jpeg

Edit: I would take Tasting Heimat over the above any day of the week. At least LH provide proper crockery and hot meals on longer segments.

It's not just for breakfast either, the dreaded box of wonders is delivered on all flights in shorthaul segment.

AF is on par with LH on shorter flights where cold service is done, but as mentioned, falls behind when warm meals are given out by LH. And it's not like AF cold plates are better than LH cold plates either, they are about the same on average.

CS's advisors would argue that this is why airlines go bankrupt. ;)

Also Iberia (including Iberia Express) is quite good.

As far as I'm concerned, the dealbreaker is having an option. OS does have good food, no doubt about it, but it's hit or miss. All it takes to ruin your experience is flying on the day when they offer something you don't like and you go home hungry despite paying hundreds of euros to upgrade. Been there, done that, I will only book economy from now on.

If they wanna save money by loading less food, why not at least offer pre-orders? Is it really too much to ask for them to make three different meals per day, and loading them based on customer's advance choice when we pay 500 euros per 2 hours sector?

These days I rarely leave an economy seat dissapointed, but in business it's most of the time.

From 1 August no more apples. It was replaced with rather tasty but yet another chocolate.
I was told that more changes are coming to the catering but no details provided.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...abba20017.jpeg

Nice,
21 chocolates, instead of 1 Apple, did the intern run that past Carsten ? :D

Well at least they have started serving something tasty... An apple was an insult! Farmyard food in C??!! No thanks!

I, for one, liked the apple. Honestly more than a chocolate, even a nice one.

So now it’s “Welcome to nonstop choc you”...

Same here! They were actually incredibly fresh and had a great crunch. Although I doubt they were very popular, I will miss them on board.

Sadly, I also liked the apple! At least the chocolate wrapper is apple colored?

I travelled on 5 August and the apple was not spohred away but put as part of the breakfast into the metal basket they serve these days. Chocolates were handed out at the end of the flight.

The apple was very basic but quite tasty - and better than an unpeeled orange (Ethiopian)

MAN - MUC

The Purser assured me is was Beef, i think a DNA test might have proved otherwise :td: I left it, Chocolate Mouse was ok but how could they ruin that ? :D
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d37dc5272.jpeg

Today on BLL-FRA:


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...244ea8017.jpeg

It was edible, I did not like the meat that much, preferred the salad part. I am, however, not quite sure what it actually was. Note the lack of Tasting Heimat branding.

For FRA-BSL, no report as LH decided to leave me in FRA and put me on the next flight 5 hours later. Considering by then I would have missed most of the family party I ended up taking the train instead, where no Taste of Heimat was offered (un)fortunately. ;)

First get rid of the city, then of the Taste of Heimat branding completely?

Hmm. Wonder if they will actually make a thing of the change or just let it happen quietly. Still low-key mad about removal of the apples.

Yes, same with mine, could be something you see at the Races with Jockeys :D

Purser told me Heimat is gone these are the new upgraded Menus …… no more Apples, replaced by a very small Chocolate….

Sadly outside this circle (i.e. FT) no one could care less, reason why they get away with such poor show (and I genuinely doubt it will get any better). It is nonetheless heartening to notice that OS can still (somewhat) get it right(ish) whereas I recently flew LX (usual starting point and destination via their hub) and was very disappointed to put it mildly (my “LX data-point” is scarcely adequate, though, as I mostly fly LO and OS/LH in the winter months). As for the apple, I am usually able to maintain my childhood habit to fruit-up throughout the day hence certainly not relying on an airline (especially LH) to contribute towards my intake.

G

Actually, having listened to all the complaints i have overheard about Heimat, that is not the case & often from pax who paid to upgrade :D
Against FT rules to repeat some of them here 😉

But your absolutely spot on about reliability ;)