Frequent fliers often have complain about the food served on the flight ~ one may want to improve the taste of the sandwich, the dosa may not be crispy, the curry too thick or the quantity of food not enough and not tasting as it should. But little does one know how this food is processed and reaches the passengers.
Unlike food on the ground, which is served soon after it is cooked, flight foods have to go through several processes for it to stay fresh and nutritious for several hours.
It takes around at least 18 hours to prepare a single meal and making food tasty in the sky is the major challenge for chefs.
The food served in the plane has to withstand several fluctuations in temperatures, swinging between extreme and moderate, from the moment a meal is cooked or prepared in the kitchen to the time it is served to a passenger. Just like a flight control room, these kitchens too have a control room to know all the flight details. “Which flight is coming next?
Which flight will be flying where? What would be the passengers' preference?
All these one has to take care of in this control room,” explained general manager of Taj SATS, Shashi R Sinha. One has to keep in mind a lot of things before serving food on the flight. International Airline Virgin Atlantics informed that a lot goes into preparing food to be served at 35,000 ft.
“People eat with their eyes before they eat with their mouths, so colours and textures create anticipation of the tastes to follow meaning the visual appearance of a dish is vital," informed the spokesperson from Lufthansa. "We also need to make sure our cabin crew is able to create the dishes and present them to our customers in the aircraft. We also take into consideration the weight and packaging sizes, cooking time and the food safety elements of the storage on-board." Why so tasteless?
Scientifically, while flying high, the humidity in the cabin drops by around 15 per cent, which make sense of smell and taste decrease by 20-25 per cent. Therefore, the transport of smell and taste to the brain becomes slows. At this height, the taste of salt and sweet also decreases.
Therefore flight food is high on salt and sweet. In a bid to maintain the taste in the sky, airlines have to work a little harder. Take for example Virgin Atlantic Airlines, which selects products with a stronger flavour profile to ensure that they are not tasteless on the flight.
"We create recipes that take into account the air pressure and humidity levels aboard an aircraft. We do not add additional salt or pepper ~ the increased flavour profiles are achieved through natural ingredients," said a spokesperson of Virgin Atlantic Airlines.
The same goes with the German airline Lufthasana, which works with natural aromas such as fresh herbs, spices and reductions (such as tomato reduction) to enhance the flavours and make food tasty and healthy. In the kitchen The story of flight food is complicated ~ usually, in international flights, destination determines the nature of food while in domestic routes it is timing.
A recent trip to Vistara Airlines' base kitchen in the Capital revealed the intense planning that goes into processing and delivering food to the planes.
Food is cooked round the clock in the vast kitchen of Taj SATs, situated in Aerocity Delhi. More than 700 dishes are readied in its kitchen, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and desserts.
Usually the staff start preparing food 18 hours prior to a flight as it has to go through several processes. Once the raw material is received, the first task is to check the quality, cleaning norms, temperature management and expiry dates. This is done by the quality assurance team.
Raw vegetables are kept in chlorine water for some time to sanitize them.
For packaged material or other ingredients, there is a separate staff dedicated to open them and check thoroughly. There are many dos and don’ts the kitchen staff has to keep in mind while preparing the food. For instance, food has to be delivered within 18 hours of preparation.
Managing temperature is also a major challenge. The science behind preservation says food is free from any biological attacks as long as it is warm (up to 72 degree Celsius) or cold (5 degree Celsius).
"Every activity is time bound here. And if the time pattern is not followed the food can go waste," the general manager of Taj STATs informed. "I will give you an example of this raw meat ~ it has to be readied at 15 degree within 45 minutes." The vast kitchen is divided into different parts ~ in Taj STATs they call it islands.
For instance, some islands are meant to prepare food for business-class food, some are meant to cook breakfast or some will cook only vegetarian or only non-vegetarian.
To demarcate them, the kitchen uses different colours of cutlery sets to cook different food. Green is meant for vegetarian, yellow for chicken, red is for meat and blue is for sea food.
“Serving food on flights is one of the most difficult parts. We have to keep so many things in mind. We have limited space and weight of food ~ we can’t exceed it. Therefore, we try to serve less liquid items like dal or curry. Other than this we also have to (keep an eye on) everything, like how food looks, forks, knives and cutlery apart from many other things," Arun Batra, the executive chef of Taj SATS.
The business-class meal of Vistara weighs around 300 gms per meal and economy class food weighs approximately 220 gms per meal. And this does not include soft drinks. Tea/coffee and juices weigh about 80-100 ml and water is 200 ml. "Not only this, we even test the calorie count," the chef added.
Once the food is ready, the most important task is to bring all the hot food from 72 degree Celsius to 15 degree, within four hours.
The food is shifted from hot kitchen to cold kitchen, where it is kept in a freezer for four hours to "cold soak".
The food is then transported to meal bank in trolleys. As the flight timing approaches, the food is taken out of the meal bank. Taj SATS also carries out a Hazards Analysis Critical Control Point test (HACCP), wherein food samples are sent to their in-house lab to test for food poisoning.
In the last one hour, they do the final packing before dispatching. Even before finally transporting the trolley, the food is again randomly checked to find out the types or class it belongs to.
Once the security passes the food, these trolleys are sealed. High lifts, named special vans, take the food to various destinations. The packages are opened only when they reach the plane.
"Even a little difference in temperature can change the taste and texture of food," the Vistara chef said. Once the whole process is done, dishwashing is equally important.
Usually, the dishes and cutlery are sanitized at 82 degree Celsius. Deciding the menu The food in-charge of Vistara, a Singapore-based airline, which serves 9,000 to10,000 meals in a day in its entire network, informed that season played an important role in deciding and changing the menu.
Their menu is finalised by the food and beverage industry in a series of brain-storming sessions and a thorough research goes into identifying the latest food trends. Usually the menu is changed twice a year ~ once in summer and then between October and November, with the onset of winter.
But preparations for every change starts three to four months in advance. "We keep certain things in mind before deciding the menu.
For instance, for an early morning flight from Delhi to Mumbai it is understood that most passengers will be travelling for work. So we make sure that the meal is light and has the right ingredients. Similarly, dinner is a little heavy, the reason being that a lot of people generally catch flights skipping more than one meal,” informed the Vistara chef. The menu is decided between the chefs and the management team.
Once they are finalized, a sample tasting is organised with the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and Chief Financial Officer, lead cabin crew members and chefs from other regions, as well as others for feedback.
"In Vistara, the menu goes through four cycles of rotation and each cycle is repeated after six days. This ensures a unique gastronomical experience every time one flies Vistara, especially for the airline's frequent flyers,” said the Vistara spokesperson. International carrier Lufthansa informed that they try to fulfill the wishes and expectations of passengers as well as possible. Since they fly all over the world, other than western food they also need to take care of ethnic food specialities such as Japanese, Indian and so on.
"To start the programme we hold a so-called think tank meeting, to collect all kinds of ideas regarding what we want to do and in which direction we might want to go. This involves participants from Lufthansa sales, Lufthansa crew and the Lufthansa product development," informed the airline’s spokesperson.
Once the menu is finalised a briefing is sent to the catering unit that states what they expect to see and what should be prepared.
The menu proposals are sent back to them after two to three months.
Out of the given proposals they select around 100-150 dishes. This is how the menu is curated in every airline. Not only this, the menu has to change according to season and class also.
“Anyone travelling to a destination tastes their first flavours (of the region or country) on-board the aircraft, starting their journey through the food we serve." informed Virgin Atlantic spokesperson.
"We change our Upper Class and Premium Economy food menu every three months, while we change our Economy menu every six months. In our menu selection we like to add a little bit more class to all our dishes and we define a style based on the market trends , driven by demand. We love to curate delicious food with structure, height and a bit of culinary art while keeping it fresh and intriguing."
Usually we avoid ordering salad as our first meal in any restaurant, but it was highly recommended by restaurant's manager. we chose Indo-Caesar Salad, which was quite fresh, and indeed the best way to begin. Once done with the Salad, there was a deluge of dishes on the table. Betroot ki Chaat, where beetroot was baked and dressed with several chutney and spices, was good to taste but not the best. Then it was the turn of Gol Gappa. It was served quite impressively: there were syringes filled with different chutney and test tubes carrying flavoured water. However, it was no match to the roadside Golgappa, except for hygiene and presentation. Then we were served Butter Chicken Croquets ~ balls of chicken decorated with herbs and spices. Grilled Prawns were just average. One can go for Chilli Garlic Fish instead. There are plenty of drinks options ~ one could start with Weekend Uncultured, then try Double Spicy Twist and Pan Badshah should be the last. It has a refreshing taste of Paan. 
