Lufthansa To Sell Unsold Fresh Food At A Discount Before Landing

Jan 15, 2024

The German flag carrier will employ a unique technique to provide passengers with an opportunity to help reduce food waste.

On Wednesday, Lufthansa Group announced a new initiative to allow passengers to purchase unsold fresh food at a discounted price at the end of a flight. These meals will be sold to-go, allowing passengers to take home with them a tasty snack or grab a quick bite before landing.

The program, entitled "Onboard Delights Last Minute," will allow Lufthansa passengers to purchase any food that has not been sold during the duration of the flight for a uniform price of €3.50. Passengers will also have the option to both collect and redeem award miles with Onboard Delights Last Minute purchases.

Lufthansa's catering program, operated by Gate Gourmet, includes an assortment of salads, bowls, sandwiches, and specialty cakes, and has been serving passengers for over two years now.

The airline, the namesake member of the incredibly expansive and diverse Lufthansa Group, is not the first group carrier to offer unsold food at a discounted price, as Austrian, SWISS, and Eurowings have been doing so since 2022.

Lufthansa will be offering this new program on select flights returning from European destinations to Frankfurt or Munich. While unsold food on outbound flights can be served on the leg back to Germany, unsold food will be thrown out at the end of flights inbound to the carrier's hubs.

Thus, Lufthansa has been able to provide its loyal customers with an opportunity to enjoy an affordable, tasty snack while helping increase revenue generated from food sales. But most importantly, both customers and the carrier will be working together to decrease food waste.

At €3.50, these meals provide a unique opportunity for connecting passengers, as those who will need to eat during a long layover can purchase an affordable gourmet meal from Lufthansa instead of an expensive airport alternative.

Important to note for passengers, however, is that this unique opportunity will only be available on flights within Europe that are more than an hour long, as Lufthansa has a different catering program for longer flights and does not cater flights under one hour long.

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The Onboard Delights Last Minute program falls in line with the carrier's long-term sustainability initiatives. Lufthansa aims to reduce food waste by 50% by 2025 from the recorded 2019 levels.

Furthermore, other Lufthansa Group carriers have been able to succeed in reducing food waste through an unsold food program. Austrian, Swiss, and Eurowings have reported selling around 80,000 food products that would have gone to waste in 2022.

This program could lead to an even longer-term trend as the airline industry looks to the future. Commercial aviation will be defined by its ability to continue innovating and decreasing carbon output as it remains one of the most carbon-intense industries.

In the future, we will likely see airlines require the pre-ordering of meals and snacks with limited onboard purchasing options. Such a pre-ordering scheme would allow carriers to waste zero food, as they would know exactly how many meals to supply for each flight.

Alexander (Alex) Mitchell, a 19-year-old Applied Mathematics and Economics student at Brown University has maintained a lifelong passion for aviation. As a first-generation Latino, his strongest childhood memories often involve the Airbus A330s flying him to his family in Buenos Aires. Mitchell is an aspiring strategy consultant, with experience in market analysis, industry dynamics, and market entry. Throughout the past year, Mitchell has served as a consultant for AT&T, Airbnb, and multiple other firms. After graduation, Mitchell aims to enter the field of Management Consulting with a specialty in commercial aviation.