When I think of food on US airlines, there are two things which immediately come to mind: warm mixed nuts and freshly baked cookies (healthy, I know!). As a nut-lover, I always enjoy the smell of nuts being heated, though there has been one distressing trend when it comes to American’s nut mix.
As anyone who is nuts about nuts has surely noticed, American has been greatly increasing the proportion of cashews in their premium cabin nut mix, mostly replacing almonds and pecans.
Fortunately you can let out a sigh of relief, because American’s nut mix will soon once again feature more almonds. Via The Dallas Morning News:
“Our passengers are very astute,” Hector Adler, American’s vice president of flight service, responded to an employee question about cashews in American’s latest employee newsletter. “It’s true that there have been more cashews in the mix. Nuts are a commodity and are subject to forces of supply and demand, and earlier this year almond prices were on the rise, resulting in a larger percentage of cashews in the ramekins.”
Excellent! That certainly softens the blow of any potential AAdvantage changes. 😉
Anyway, it is sort of interesting what caused this. California produces most of the world’s almonds, and the drought has resulted in huge cuts in production. Furthermore, US almond consumption has increased significantly, both of which are driving up the prices of almonds. But apparently prices are shifting, and early next year American will again serve a mix with more almonds and fewer cashews.
Yay? 😉 Maybe I’m just easily impressed, but my favorite part of this story is that an employee is observant enough of the onboard product to ask American’s head of flight service about the proportion of nuts in their onboard offering.
(Tip of the hat to NS)
I've been enjoying the increased ratio of cashews. I don't like American's almonds. When I fly with my wife she eats all the almonds and I eat all the cashews. The pistachios are the best part of the mix, but there's always so few of them.
@stvr, call me!
As American continues on its race to the bottom in everyway the bigger problem regarding their
frugal offering of nuts is that they don't really serve nuts anymore at all
I would call it nut fragments or nut dust for that and 100 other reasons you wont find me on their flights
Yes they fool many of their passengers that they offer premium cabins /experiences but certainly not everyone self included
I'd prefer cashews to almonds too.
As a nut lover I too love the smell of warm nuts
Prefer the cashews over the almonds actually.... what I'd really like to see is more pecans!
LOL a blog post about AAlmonds, that`s pretty nuts and good fun :-D
Brian disagrees with Brian and thinks that this is a wonderful subject for a blog post. I want more reporting on this, not less. Can't we all agree that there are too few pecans and pistachios in the mix. Can you get to the bottom of that conspiracy for us?
This has got to be the silliest blog post ever.
I for one still miss the cheese with olive oil and herbs ... I don't care for nuts ...
Why are you treating this as a good thing? It's terrible! Cashews are SO MUCH BETTER than almonds. YET ANOTHER AAAAADVAAAANTAGE DEVALUAAAATION ;)
When mbas run companies this how they save money. They have nothing to offer to the society so to justify their overpriced salariea they use metrics like #of almonds to save money.
Good to hear people are happy with the American nut mix after United had to toss its own nut mix.
It is too bad that I much prefer cashews over the other nuts american offers
I love cashews, but they aren't healthy like almonds are so happy about the change. I usually just eat the almonds from the ramekin, sometimes that's nothing at all.
What is really like is lunch meal choices improved from pure carb, carb with a little meat, carb with a little fish. Lately the best meal is the chicken on fresh salad that you buy in economy class.
I love cashews, but they aren't healthy like almonds are so happy about the change. I usually just eat the almonds from the ramekin, sometimes that's nothing at all.
That with Mike meal choices improved from pure carb, carb with a little meat, carb with a little fish I'd be happier. Lately the best meal is the chicken on fresh salad that you buy in economy class.
I'm another person who prefers cashews to almonds. More pistachios would be nice.
Aww, too bad. I love warm cashews, and am not too fond of pecans or almonds.
Ah well. Maybe there will still be some cashews in the nut mix.
And over the years we always heard complaints AA had *too many* almonds in the mix.