What we eat on our flights

Do you ever think about what you eat while you are traveling in an aircraft? Do you ever ask yourself how all that food gets on a small tray in front of you? I never did also, until now that I got to spend a lot of days in different aircraft types and got to taste all the food that’s inside. So because I have now the opportunity to do the Catering Tour, I decided to do it. Before only the seniors were allowed to visit these facilities, but now everyone is encouraged to do so. It’s one thing someone tells you that the food is made like this, but when you see it with your own eyes, is a totally different thing. Now, after this experience, if someone will ask me information about whats on the tray, I have enough things to say.

So I booked my place for next day and at 11.30 I was at the specified place. There were other few people there so we had a short introduction and then we went to the bus that took us to the Catering building. When we reached there we met a very nice man that works there for almost 20 years and he was our host for the day! We went to a very nice room for a small talk and then we had some breakfast. Some healthy carrot juice and orange, fruits and very tasty pastries, so we can start the day with power! The next step was to get our protection clothes, the passes and to pass through security because the company does concentrate a lot on security. Then we started the tour.
There are 2 big buildings and the third coming up soon, because of the big volume of work they need more space. We started to pass through different areas where there were people working or some big machines to move things from one place to another. The operation is so huge and so organized that you can’t believe these people make so many things in one day. Everything is huge in there, starting with the high number of people working. You know how an ant hill looks like when you try to break it?! You know how many ants are there?! Well, it was looking the same in here, which is very nice because this means that Emirates don’t use robots for everything and the company offers opportunities to people to work in a clean and organized environment.
I saw how careful they are with the cleaning and the keeping of the cleaned pieces, which makes me feel better because I always asked myself “are these things cleaned properly?”. Well now I have the answer, YES everything is cleaned, which means no more worries. Then before we passed by the side where they wash and chop the fruits and vegetables we had to clean and disinfect our hands, even if we didn’t touch anything. I was watching these people how quick they were chopping the fruits and vegetables and not in any way you want, but following the standard that the company requires. It’s not like you’re cutting for your own salad at home, they need to cut it in a specific way, which in my mind it just doesn’t work, I can’t do that! Next, we passed by the bakery and that was so unfair because was smelling soooo good and the different type of bread, the sweets and the pastries were looking so good that I wanted to have a bed and sleep there, but that was not possible, obviously! Next stop was where they actually prepare the individual meals and again, is not like they can put it how ever they feel like! Everything has to follow some standards! And one of the important standards is that all the meals in this company are HALAL! There is a specific process for everything! They even check the temperature of the food! Everything is still crazy for me, even now when I’m writing I still think that they excel my expectations. Can you imagine that these people make around 180.000 to 220.000 meals in 24 h?! That’s a huge lot! And there are so many steps and people involved in this. There is another lever there, the butchery but we didn’t go there for some reasons. We continue with how the trays are made and how they end up in the carts in the same state that we receive it in the aircraft. We stopped also in the area where they refill the bars and so I found out that the company spends huge amounts of money for the high-quality products that they provide in first and business class, meaning that if there is luxury then everything should follow. The last step was the place where they load the trucks for the flights. And the Grand Final step was, of course, having a late lunch and then a little meeting with the Chef that decides what we eat for some answers to our curiosities. So like this, I’ve learned that we don’t use too much salt, that we don’t spray the food or the fruits with different weird substances and that actually it’s pretty healthy everything that we have around us, which is a very comforting thing to know.
I’m really happy I decided to do this tour because now I have much more information for myself and for other people that are curious to know. I respect more the people that work here “behind the scene” and I’ll try my best to make their life easier because they really work hard every day!

It was a great experience, I’ve met a few of my colleagues and to make it even better, I’ll show you a picture of the hallway with almost all the flags in the world that I really like it and were, of course, I found also my beloved Romanian flag, even if we don’t fly there, yet I hope! 🙂

A flying soul