I just read this article from the Australian (link) Have all airlines gone this way? It seems a bit disappointing when you spend good money to fly business class (any class in fact) to be served food that may of been frozen up to 12 months.
Whew - from the headline I thought it was the passengers being served from the freezer! That is to say - freshly frozen passengers!
I thought the business class passengers had to eat in the freezer, which might be OK for the vodka and caviar course if QF supplies fur coats to wear while sitting in the freezer, sort of like an ice bar or ice hotel in Scandinavia.
Like Virgin's new Scandinavians R Us Business Bar for inaugural flights to Stockholm? Or the New Hyatt Place planned for Longyearbyen, Norway?
Amazing story, it is how our world ticks today, sad but true! Glad that some people come to their senses and whistle blow! Only because airlines // fliers are under pressure and really want value // need value these days, it does not mean to trick people into believing we are doing something better eg. such as serving fresh food! Good food should be enforced in any class // airline, it shall not only a privilege of business // first in my opinion!
Marketing aside, who actually has good food in business? Food you can eat? Sure. But food you look forward to eating? First class on some airlines is a different story, I'll look forward to the kaiseki meal on ANA or the black sesame soup on Cathay... Even then most first class food is just food. And most business class food is a notch below first class food. Though sure the airlines ought to be honest about it though I rarely believe anyone's ads, let alone an airline's!
Isn't that what they plan for space travel- put the pax in suspended animation ("put them on ice") and wake them just before arrival. That's what they did in the movie 2001. (well, until HAL went psycho on them)
Seriously, I look forward to most dinners on DL BE TATL/TPAC. If you were to drop SQ's satay and caviar courses (that are becoming more and more rare), I like DL's BE food better than SQ FC, including Book the Cook. However, in all fairness, one should point out that DL only offers two classes (plus their new economy comfort), so that in principle their BE is supposed to be between business and IFC. It's also more expensive to get into on an upgrade. However, of course SQ FC has much better champagne and wines, although DL's award winning French champagne and their (usually one on TATL/TPAC) French red are quite decent.
The SQ kaiseki meals ex-NRT have gotten really quite good. But SQ meals weren't noted in my post, ya notice? Satay aside I don't think much of their food compared to ANA, and they have a few specific items as other carriers do that are really good but since most F food isn't the kind of stuff I look forward to, business class food generally won't be anticipatory either (though in thinking back on it I've had perfectly decent foie gras in business class on Air France in the past ex-CDG, though the meals departing other stations which are catered locally have on the whole been rubbish).
I did notice that you commented on IFC on ANA and Cathay, but I decided to mention SQ because they're usually placed in the same category and because they're the non-DL carrier with which I am currently most familiar. In the past, I've had very decent business (since you mention AF) class meals on SAS and TAP. Business class TPAC JAL and Qantas didn't impress me either positively or negatively, based on a few data points, although the front cabin within Australia can be pretty good in relative terms. As much as I like connecting through AMS, I have never liked KLM food and wine, although their intra-EU wine has gotten better (note the faint praise here) since the merger with AF.