What is the lifecycle of an airline meal?
The menus for the airlines are often organised and arranged around a year in advance. This is quite a rigorous process which involves head chefs meeting with company executives to organise a menu that is perfect for their customers that is most appropriate
The more exotic the destination, the more likely that the menu served will be a more spicy dish.
Once the menu is chosen, the arrangement needs to be decided upon. Everything from where the cup, the cutlery, sauce, etc. is meticulously planned so that it is the best that it can be for the customer.
Don’t forget to wash hands, cleanliness is important!
Vegetables are cooked on grills approximately 2.5m long
Lots of spices are added to the food as it is cooked
Meat is cooked separately to vegetables on their own grills
Potatoes are often cooked differently and so are prepared elsewhere to other vegetables.
Contrary to popular belief, airline food is very seasoned, although the high altitude and lack of moisturein the air dries out fliers’ noses and dulls their tastebuds causing the food to taste more bland than it should.
The food is then blast frozen and placed in the foil containers. At this point, the meat is only cooked about 30% as it will be recooked on the aircraft. The foil containers stop overfilling, and allow the crew to know exactly how much is in each serving.
Lids are then placed on the trays and allowed to vent.
The meal trays are placed in freezers where they are stored before being put on the flight. They are generally only in these freezers at most 10 hours before the flight, so that they are fresh.
A different meal is served to the pilot and the copilot so that there is less chance of any food-related illness.
Leftover food is sometimes given to crew, or donated to food banks. The rest is disposed of using chemicals. It used to be incinerated, but this is not common any more.
Because leftover food is contraband in the country, it is illegal for crew to sneak food with them. They could be fired for this.