Insights on Airline Catering

The Sustainabilist spoke withFabio Gamba, ManagingDirector of the AirlineCatering Association, aboutthe industry's challenges andopportunities

Can you give us a general overview of the functions of ACA?

ACA is a not-for-profit trade body that represents the interests of its members, a network of organisations and individuals, shaping the airline catering industry and driving positive change from within. We represent a vital segment in the transport value chain as airline caterers are a key stakeholder in the aviation industry whose business model has been in existence since that of airlines. When airlines were liberalised in the 1990s, carriers began outsourcing non-core businesses, including catering, and from there, airline catering organisations came into force as a separate business.

Typically, we work in functional working groups alongside our members, legislators, customers, and airlines to shape the policies relevant to our trade body, in order to promote and defend the members’ common interests. Each member is invited to join these working groups to share its own expertise and ensure that the resulting documents, manuals, campaign, or position papers serve them. We work to address and influence regulations and other agendas, an example of which is the European Commission’s directive on banning single-use plastics as well as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Is there interest from Middle Eastern catering services to become members of the ACA?

Yes, as a matter of fact, one of the Founding Members is dnata, a very-well known Middle Eastern entity in the UAE. We are also currently discussing with a few others, including, for instance, Saudi Airlines Catering. As an organisation, they have been quite open about their interest in joining in.

What regulatory initiatives have been produced to address the health and safety of the industry’s stakeholders in response to the pandemic?

The WHO was quick to disclose that there is no evidence to prove that Covid-19 is transmitted through food. Notwithstanding this, passengers were apprehensive of this and so airlines came to us asking for something that would reassure passengers with respect to how their food is being produced and packaged. At the same time, airlines were struggling due to the slump in air traffic. For these reasons, we created a Covid-19 task force, considering the lower demands, to ensure business continuity for the international traffic that remained and develop a manual in compliance with the different regulations relevant across the world.

This was a complex initiative as we had to develop a document based on local risk assessments, which would be scalable by the beneficiaries, according to the epidemiology of the disease and the corresponding regulations applied in different countries. Overall, I know that the work we did was extremely useful, especially judging from the interest its release has generated amongst the community. I think it is fair to say it really filled up a vacuum.

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.

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.

What practices that embrace sustainability could we expect to see as airlines recover?

As I mentioned earlier, in the EU, the single-use plastics ban will come into force 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 I trust the industry will be ready when the directive will enter into force.

Sustainability is definitely a growing trend, even in the airline catering industry, and it is being embraced strongly.

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.

Unfortunately, at this stage, with the Covid-19 crisis, a lot of things have been 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.

However, to me, the recovery will have a 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.