Airport food retailers offer a unique taste of local flavours

Photo by Sam Moqadam on Unsplash

Seeing the same airport food retailers and concessions at every airport you visit has become one of the pitfalls of international travel in recent times.  Big brands and chains have popped up in every corner of the globe, making it difficult for some frequent fliers to distinguish which country they are in simply by looking at what is on offer inside the airport. So we interested to hear how  Manchester airport have decided to strike out for individuality by focusing on local cuisine and the things that make Manchester unique. By offering something different the airport hopes to reinforce their own brand –  by evoking the atmosphere and the culture of the local area –  not just through the food on offer,  but also the airport retail design and the customer experience.

Manchester have recently opened a series of pop-up concept stores inside the airport which allow  passengers to try some of the regions finest street foods. Ginger’s Comfort Emporium is one such store, selling hand-made and award winning local ice cream from a three-wheeler Piaggio Ape van which is decorated in a vintage style and parked within the airport complex.

Gingers ice cream is aimed at ‘grown-ups’, with unusual flavour combinations like ‘Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Smoked Sea Salt’ and customers are invited to try before they buy.

Street food, by it’s very definition is portable – you may remember some of our past posts on innovative street food vending on this blog – and this portability means that it is a concept that works well in a busy terminal and it is also seasonal  and ephemeral – contributing to the uniqueness of it’s availability in a specific location.

Ginger’s emporium has now been joined by other street food traders at the airport including Spit and Roast, Fish&, The Hungry Gecko, Streatza, Manjit’s Kitchen and the Greedy Bassets Kitchen who sell Yorkshire delicacies including griddled Whitby fish. So far the new additions have been well-received as a welcome enhancement to many customer journeys – both through the airport and beyond…