What’s wrong with airplane food? I went to Atlanta to find out

People often say that we don’t want to see how sausages are made. I do not agree.

I recently had the chance to try a bunch of Delta Air Lines’ new first class meals at their headquarters in Atlanta, and while I was there as a guest of the airline, they took the opportunity to show me around their indoor flight kitchen. .

I’m here to tell you what’s really going on with airline food. Delta and other airlines spend a lot of time thinking about their menus. While enjoying the shrimp and grits (please don’t tell my rabbi), I kept asking the people at Delta why everyone still felt like airplane food was bad. I was greeted with a series of shrugs and more food.

“What people don’t necessarily realize is the amount of work that goes into every aspect, from planning the menu and how we select ingredients or how we choose partners to supply and delivery and all execution in the kitchen. ” Mike Henny, Delta’s general manager of inflight service operations, told me. “Either they have an oversimplified view of it, or they just don’t realize the volumes we’re facing.

And this volume is no joke.

The 120,000 square foot facility I saw in Atlanta is owned by Delta and managed by Newrest Catering. It produces approximately 6,800 meals per day, including hot and cold dishes for travelers, meals for the crew and food for its own purser. In-flight meals produced in Atlanta are only served on flights originating there, as well as outbound or inbound when the plane is heading to a location that does not have its own catering facilities . The Domestic Flights Kitchen, one of four dining establishments at the Atlanta airport, alone stocks about 350 flights per day.

“Designing a facility like this, especially when you’re starting more or less from scratch, is about optimizing the flow of product in and out of the building,” Henny said. “It really is as optimized as it can be.”

This is what this three-step optimization looks like:

1. This is not your usual hand wash, clean

It starts with each employee passing through the hygiene room, which involves an air blowing chamber that removes dust from your protective clothing, then ends with a three-stage hand washing and sanitizing station .

After each flight, all food and beverage carts are unloaded from the aircraft. They return to the kitchen and empty themselves. Full cans and bottles from beverage carts as well as unopened packaged foods are sorted and reloaded for subsequent flights.

Everything else, from half-finished soda cans to food waste, is disposed of. Even the ice is melted and not reused. Delta strives to recycle as much as possible and food waste is liquefied for disposal.

The carts themselves, between 3,000 and 4,000 per day, are washed and inspected after each flight before being moved for reloading. Damaged carts are tagged and sent for repair.

2. Evaluate the quantity of food received by each plane

Next, we saw how the beverage carts are loaded, and what surprised me the most was the relatively low volume of products in the carts. For planes carrying more than 100 people, I expected to see more soda and beer cans, more wine bottles and miniature liquor than I did, but Delta’s catering professionals assured me that They had analyzed what was best to store on each flight. They don’t want to carry too much extra stuff, because that means more weight on the plane, which translates to more fuel consumption, but they also don’t want to miss out on passenger preference.

A typical Boeing 737-800, which is carrying 160 passengers, will be loaded with 176 packages of Biscoff biscuits, 50 cans of Coca-Cola and Diet Coke, 36 mini Woodford whiskeys, 18 Miller Lites and 83 eight-ounce bottles of water, among other provisions. I always thought there should be at least one can of Coke per passenger.

Beverage and food carts undergo quality control and safety checks before being loaded onto the aircraft. Damaged items like bent soda cans or less-than-presentable food items are removed and replaced.

3. Prepare the food itself

On the food side, a huge team of workers prepares and serves meals with the help of a few fellow mechanics.

According to Newrest, Delta’s domestic flight kitchen has 10 chefs working daily and 20 team members dedicated to preparing meals at a time.

The first thing that happens in the food preparation assembly line is to introduce the raw materials. The produce is cleaned and chopped before being sent to be cooked or incorporated into a salad or platter. All fresh ingredients are served the same day or at most the day after they arrive on Delta property.

Hot foods are cooked in high-tech ovens that help ensure consistent temperatures across a large volume of food. Pasta is also prepared in a special boiler. After being cooked, all hot ingredients are quickly cooled so as not to be overcooked, then they are sent to the plates. Hot meals are kept cold for transport and reheated in special ovens on board.

In the presentation room, teams of people work together to prepare meals cohesively. Devices such as calibrated scoops help ensure that each tray contains more or less the same amount of food so that no one goes hungry or is cheated.

A massive assembly line-style robot also helps ensure that every meal on board is presented consistently. It places components such as sides, desserts and salt packets in exactly the same place on each tray before a human employee adds the finishing touches, including cutlery and the main course.

Once all this is done, the carts can be fully assembled and loaded onto catering trucks to be sent to their assigned flights.

I’m not really sure what I expected from an airline catering kitchen, but I came away with an appreciation for how efficient the operation was. It takes a huge amount of effort to get flights stocked and ready to go, and as a traveler, it can be easy to forget how much work goes on behind the scenes to make your travels smooth and delightful.

Zach Wichter is a travel reporter for USA TODAY based in New York. You can reach him at [email protected]

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chicken or Beef? How to prepare plane meals | Cruising altitude