Airlines recruit chefs to improve the image of their food – 06/14/2023 – Tourism

Since the end of April, travelers to Paris on the Azul Linhas Aéreas Airbus A350-900 at Viracopos airport, in Campinas (SP), have had lunch and dinner with recipes from French chef Claude Troisgros, owner of houses in Rio and São Paulo.

For the 301 economy class passengers, who pay from BRL 4,819 (round trip), only one chef’s dish is served in June: boeuf bourguignon (meat cooked in wine) with rice and peas. The 33 executive passengers, who spend at least R$ 16,639, get a full menu: shrimp mayonnaise with couscous, lamb with penne and cappuccino mousse.

Perfecting the in-flight service to attract customers has been a common feature among airlines. In February, Latam launched the Sabor à Brasileira program, which alternates, every three months, dishes by female chefs.

Since May, the chicken stew of the goddesses has been on display, by chef Manuelle Ferraz, from the São Paulo restaurant A Baianeira, offered to all passengers on international flights lasting more than 7 hours.

Chef Rodrigo Oliveira, from Mocotó, signs up for the fifth time for the menu on KLM flights departing from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to Amsterdam — dishes such as cassava gnocchi with mushrooms and cheese sauce are offered in premium comfort classes and world business.

The quality of the food influences the time of purchase, says Jason Ward, vice president of people and customers at Azul. “Maybe the person doesn’t decide based on that on the first trip, but those who get used to the experience will pick it up again.”

Paulo Miranda, vice president of customers for Latam Airlines Group, agrees. “We chose democratic flavors, easy to understand, so that customers feel represented”, he says.

These initiatives help to improve the image of airline food, which has seen better days – and several factors explain why the dishes seem increasingly bland and smaller.

It starts with costs, as explained by Haroldo Lima, Product coordinator at Gol, a company that started operating in 2001 with the proposal to democratize air travel. “Aviation was for a restricted audience. The companies focused on the best possible service and charged for it.”

The menu of Gol’s international flights does not have a famous signature. Based on the budget, the outsourced catering (food service) prepares the dishes.

As Gol aircraft do not have business class, the menu is unique, served on plastic plates. Premium economy passengers are entitled to alcoholic beverages. “You only pay for what you consume”, says Lima.

It is the budget that also determines the portion sizes. In general, airlines serve main dishes weighing between 190 and 240 grams, which does not always leave the passenger satiated, as the Azul executive admits. “The quantity is a challenge for companies. There are people who complain, because they would like to eat more, but a lot of food goes to waste, because health surveillance forces the disposal of even leftovers that have not been opened. We are using artificial intelligence to reach to the perfect size.”

Those who had the chance to travel by plane in the 20th century are the ones who find the new standards most strange. Author of the book “Estrela Brasileira” (ed. KBR), Cláudia Vasconcelos was a flight attendant for Varig between 1972 and 2001 and dedicated a chapter to the company’s in-flight service.

On the first-class tables, covered with linen tablecloths, canapés of foie gras, crab shells, caviar and lobster were served on imported porcelain. “For breakfast, we made eggs according to the passenger’s request. They could be hot, fried, scrambled or an omelette.”

Such practices would be unfeasible in modern aircraft, which operate with lean crews and transport more passengers, without the galley (space reserved for the service) having increased in size in the same proportion.

They would also be prohibited due to the new health rules, since food cannot be manipulated inside the plane. All meals must leave the catering area packed, cooled to less than 5ºC, labeled with the manufacturer’s data, date of manufacture and expiration date.

Making a chef’s dish fit these parameters is no task for an ordinary kitchen. The facilities of the multinational LSG Sky Chefs, in Guarulhos, which supplies flights from Azul, Gol, Latam, TAP, British Airways, among others, resemble a factory assembly line.

In the cooking room, meats and vegetables cook inside giant pans, which reach 300ºC, and end up in equipment called a “blast chiller” —large cooling cabinets that receive food above 63ºC and ship it, a maximum of 4 hours later, below 5ºC, without loss of moisture.

From there, they fall straight into the assembly room, kept between 10ºC and 13ºC. In bays identified for each airline, employees finalize and pack the dishes, assemble the trays and stack them on the carts — the same ones that the flight attendants will push in the aisles of the planes.

The assembly process for each flight cannot exceed 45 minutes, so that the food is kept at a safe temperature, according to Keila Cordeiro, customer service coordinator at LSG.

When recipes come from abroad, such as menus signed by chefs, production is more challenging, because the conditions of the onboard service require adaptations.

The fish with banana by Claude Troisgros, served by Azul in May, was a lot of work. “The sauce, an emulsion of butter, generated a horrible layer of fat when it was reheated in the plane’s oven. I had to add a little starch to make it work”, says the chef.

Rodrigo Oliveira tried to include his famous tapioca dadinhos on the KLM menu, but failed: fried foods cannot withstand the cooling and reheating process without losing texture.
Manuelle Ferraz gave up the fried rice at the bottom of the pot, a mandatory item in her chicken dish, to adapt it to the Latam menu.

Chefs hired by airlines also learn to recalibrate seasonings —at 10,000 meters of altitude, the palate is altered.

“With humidity below 20% and low cabin pressure, the perception of sweet and salty is reduced by 30%”, explains Ad Visbeen, specialist in catering for international flights at KLM.

Other ingredients seem more potent. It happened with the vinegar that Troisgros adds to the antibiosis chicken sauce, his father’s recipe.

“My kitchen is very acidic, family tradition, but I had to control myself. I was worried on the inaugural flight, it was the first test at altitude, but the result impressed me. And they applauded me.”