London - Airline food tends to be tasteless, nondescript and unsatisfying. But imagine if it came straight from a top restaurant and turned flying into a gastronomic experience.
Journey Group aims to do just that as it has pioneered a way of delivering gourmet meals to US airlines.
Most airlines buy their food from suppliers with large, airport-based catering operations. Meals are based on ingredients that can be accessed cheaply and in bulk, the catering staff are often heavily unionised and the temperature of the food can change several times as it is transported from kitchen to aeroplane.
Journey adopts a different approach. The company does not make food itself, instead asking restaurants and hotels to prepare meals when their kitchens are slack. Chefs can make better use of their downtime in this way and Journey can ask airlines what they would like to serve, rather than telling them what they can have.
The group is able to do this because it has developed a way of keeping food chilled from kitchen to plane so it is fresh and tasty when it is served.
Journey was created in 2004 through the merger of an airline meals business with a firm supplying blankets and other inflight paraphernalia.
However, the company was badly managed, it fell into loss and by 2007 was on its knees. At that point an executive chairman, Stephen Yapp, was brought in to fix the business.
Yapp, an accountant by training, has spent most of his career turning companies round and he has made considerable progress at Journey.
The company is now profitable, fast-growing and even pays a decent dividend.
Journey’s food business was based in London, but when it fell into difficulties its UK operations were sold and it now focuses on America, though its headquarters are at Heathrow.
The biggest customer is United, but when that airline merged with Continental, Journey started working for that firm, too. The group also supplies low-cost US carrier JetBlue and Federal Express.
Currently, Journey only delivers food to Los Angeles airport, catering for more than 150 flights a day there.
Many meals are supplied by Drago’s, one of the best-known Italian eateries in Los Angeles. Even though the food comes from a top restaurant, Journey’s customers still save as the firm’s operating costs are far lower than traditional inflight meal suppliers.
Airline catering contracts tend to be renewed every three years and Journey is expected to win plenty of new business in LA and other US airports.
Journey also supplies airlines such as British Airways, Emirates and Qantas with trays, plates, cutlery and kits containing toothbrushes, eye-pads and lip salve for long-haul flights.
Midas verdict: The airline industry should be a prime beneficiary of economic recovery and Journey Group is well positioned to benefit. Offering tasty, fresh and cost-effective airline food, the company should expand significantly over the next few years and its chilling process is patented in the US, so it cannot be copied. - Mail On Sunday