Issue 26 | November 2020
How does the airline catering closedloop system work? In general terms, airline catering is closedloop in the sense that meals are produced in a tightly controlled system with no interference from external variables. The food is produced at catering facilities and transported onto the airplanes prior to takeoff. Once the passengers have been served and the airplane has landed at its international destination, the food – or what is left of it – is then disposed of in a closed circuit as it is directly sent to landfills. This happens, first and foremost, because the majority of countries do not allow food coming from international destination to be dispersed internally. This results in a massive amount of waste and so, to this effect, we are trying to convince governments that there should be a mutual recognition of the health and safety standards of the meals produced by airline caterers which all follow similar, strict guidelines.
in July of next year, and we anticipate this will be followed by other countries in the months and years to come. This is something that we are following closely as it affects our industry greatly. Airlines and caterers will have to adapt with less plastic onboard and more reusable materials. This is something that has already begun and so
However, to me, the recovery will have a
Sustainability is definitely a growing trend, even in the airline catering industry, and it is being embraced strongly.
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I trust the industry will be ready when the directive will enter into force.
What practices that embrace sustainability could we expect to see as airlines recover?
Sustainability is definitely a growing trend, even in the airline catering industry, and it is being embraced strongly. A point of advantage for us is the direct line of contact between the customers’ wants and our production. We can leverage the increased digitalisation, such as e-tickets and online check-ins, to provide passengers and increase their experience by allowing them to directly order their inflight meals. This way, passengers are more sensitised to the importance of food and since they ordered the meals according to their preferences, they will most likely eat it. This is something we are working on together with airlines as we believe this practice has the potential to significantly reduce food waste.
As I mentioned earlier, in the EU, the single-use plastics ban will come into force
Unfortunately, at this stage, with the Covid-19 crisis, a lot of things have been
Basically, a meal produced in country A which respects all the health and safety regulations should be considered as such in country B. This would diminish quite sensibly food waste generated by our industry. Unfortunately, this is a very lengthy process as we need to address highest level state representatives and persuade them that current legislations are obsolete.
put on hold simply due to the increasing cases of the virus and the dismal figures in terms of international flights. The majority of players in our industry are in survival mode, and as such, they are operating to get through these hard times.
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fair to say it really filled up a vacuum.
strong connotation of sustainability. So, while industry players are developing strategies to get back on their feet, discussions for adopting sustainable practices in the airline catering industry, such as standards and labelling for locally and sustainably grown foods, are taking place, albeit in the longer term. There have been a number of State aid measures allocated to airlines globally in the last six months. The majority of these were made to safeguard jobs, which is a laudable thing. I do believe though that in the near future, should the crisis protract, we will start to see these State aids with a string of conditions related to environmental sustainability. In earnest, I believe there can be no meaningful future for the aviation industry as a whole, including caterers, if we are not able to show that we can operate in a much more sustainable way than we did in the past. 8
