Access-as-Luxury Takes off With Private-Jet-Flown Meals From International Restaurants

For the ultra-rich, their favorite restaurant’s delivery radius just got a whole lot wider. Private jet company Farringdon Jets announced in a news release Tuesday (Feb. 1) the launch of its “Quarantine Cuisine From Around The World” offering by which the company will fly meals from anywhere in the world to consumers’ doors within 48 hours. (Well, the plane does not literally arrive at their doors — the company’s “concierge team” takes over transportation after the plane touches ground.)

The company promises that the service is available “without breaking the bank,” although with costs at this scale, the company could be referring not to one’s individual bank account but to the whole bank itself. The meals are transported on flights that have already been scheduled. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on pricing.

“This is the most cost-effective and, for most, the only way to experience the world’s best cuisine, authentically made without leaving their home,” a company spokesperson said in the release. “Everyone has been to a part of the world where they have appreciated the taste of the authentic food on offer. Now they can relive that experience without leaving their home. It is like Uber Eats but on a global scale.”

It is worth noting that what “everyone” means to a private jet company is different than what the word would mean to, say, McDonald’s, since factually, not everyone has explored the world. The attempt to market the service as “cost-effective” is an odd choice, given the examples the company gives of use cases on the webpage advertising the service, which include “fresh sushi from a world-renowned restaurant in Tokyo” and “the finest wine from an Argentinian vineyard.”

The move is part of a trend in the restaurant industry to sell access as a luxury. For instance, in mid-January, news broke of Resy Co-Founder Gary Vaynerchuk‘s latest project, a nonfungible token (NFT)-enabled, members-only restaurant called Flyfish Club (FFC), which is set to open in the first half of 2023.

Read more: NFT Restaurant Makes Memberships Tradeable as Market Shows Signs of Slowing

The restaurant has two membership tiers — one, of which there are thousands available, that costs 2.5 Ether (about $6,800) and one, of which there are several hundred available, that costs 4.25 Ether (about $11,500). With this restaurant, access is a tradeable commodity, with token holders able to sell or lease their memberships.

Granted, consumers’ expectations of access are being raised for those of a wide range of income brackets. The rise of food delivery services has made it possible for consumers to get far more of their favorite restaurants’ meals brought to their doors, and the competition in the space for speed is increasingly shortening consumers’ expected time frames.

With early tests now into autonomous delivery through a range of robotic vehicles — sidewalk rovers, often in urban areas, and drones, typically in less dense areas — it seems likely that restaurants’ delivery radii will continue to expand. While a middle-income consumer in New York City might not be able to expect spaghetti carbonara flown in from Rome, residents of deep Brooklyn might expect access to all the restaurants that the uppermost parts of Manhattan have to offer.