[ad_1]
dnata, the world’s leading provider of aviation and travel services, will serve more than five million special meals to its global airline partners during the festive season as passengers travel to visit family and friends.
From mid-December to Boxing Day, a traditional roast turkey dinner, a favorite with dnata’s global airline partners, will be served. Include the essential ingredients of such a culturally important meal: turkey, sage and onion stuffing, roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and finish with Christmas cake and mince pies. The most popular customer additions are cranberry sauce and bread spread.
Robin Padgett, Senior Vice President of Food and Beverage and Retail at dnata, explains the process of creating festive menus: “Airline menus are planned annually, and many airlines have four annual menus to reflect seasonal changes.
“Festive menus are developed by our award-winning chefs and signed off in November. Recipes are then created for all of our global sites, complete with loading and plating instructions with photos of each stage to ensure the process is foolproof .
“We also take special requests from our airline partners into consideration, offering halal meat and tasty vegetarian alternatives. Special meals account for 45% of the total meals served on our major airlines.”
dnata also offers catering to airline partners through tailor-made in-flight retail offerings. “We’ll make sure our retail customers’ passengers can also enjoy a festive experience with turkey, cranberry and stuffing sandwiches and mince pies when they’re on a special journey,” Padgett said.
While producing such a large number of festive meals, dnata’s catering team worked closely with airline customers to analyze consumption trends and use predictive data to optimize catering loads for in-flight catering. Analysis of onboard data could not only reduce food waste, but also reduce fuel consumption associated with being overweight. Additionally, dnata Catering sources and supplies local produce where possible to reduce menu-related food miles.
“We’re proud that our global customers trust us to provide them and their passengers with the highest quality meals and locally sourced ingredients,” Padgett added.
Global Standards, Local Menus
In the UK, dnata Catering’s traditional roast turkey dinner is served around 8,000 times a day. Additionally, a 10,000-piece tray set will be given away, including mince pies, holiday-themed chocolates and drinks.
In the United States, a similar turkey main meal is served. But instead of empanadas, popular desserts among US airline partners are pumpkin pie with spiced mascarpone or cream, or pumpkin cheesecake with stewed apples. This year, airlines are asking for extra desserts. They include Christmas logs and filled chocolates, gingerbread cookies and salted chocolate truffles.
While 75,000 traditional roast turkey meals will be served to international customers in Australia, consuming 1.9 tonnes of meat, some airlines will start with a local starter prawn cocktail or mixed grain and cranberry salad. For dessert choose from warm fruit pudding, Christmas pudding cheesecake or gingerbread spiced crumble mousse.
dnata’s Catering and Retail division is one of the world’s leading providers of in-flight hospitality. During the first six months of the 2022-23 fiscal year, dnata’s customer-focused teams produced more than 50 million meals, serving full-service, low-cost and VIP airlines from more than 60 locations. – trade arab news agency
[ad_2]
Source link