How in-flight meals are prepared. In-flight catering for passengers and crew In-flight catering manufacturers

Who eats on planes? In response to this question, I would always raise my hand. An hour's travel time for a meal is reduced to just a few minutes. I come up with interesting sandwiches from cold appetizers. I also compete with myself for the neatest container, which after eating becomes a warehouse for packaging. I almost always give dessert to Maksiche, who meets me. He has a sweet tooth, unlike me.

I ate and ate and never thought about how this food was prepared and got on board. UTair invited me to its historical homeland, to Surgut, where the 350-meter in-flight catering workshop prepares food for all flights departing from this airport. In general, with its food among Russian airlines feeds only UTair and Aeroflot. The rest order catering at the airport, packaging it in their own boxes, as Siberian S7 does.

In Surgut, UTair cooks not only for airplane passengers, but also for cafes at the airport and for its hotel.

The main person in UTair's in-flight catering is Nikolai Vasilievich. Seryozha wrote very well about him, we flew together with him.

« Tens of millions of passengers fed per year. More than a thousand people at four airports. And two and a half billion in revenue. He manages all this from his office here in Surgut. The scale captivates him and inspires me with it. This is how he is - Nikolai Vasilyevich.He suddenly exclaims his favorite: “The passenger is always right!”

And again he begins with love about the children. How difficult it is to transport them. Much more difficult than Hajj pilgrims. How to prepare flight attendants. He disappears somewhere and returns with a coloring book and pencils. Gives them to my colleague. After all, she has a child.

He is noisy and kind. Knows everyone by name and patronymic, which he pronounces with love. Here, among all the combi ovens and stoves, there is a completely different atmosphere than in the kitchens chain restaurants Moscow. It's like in a movie. And it smells like buns.”

Where the food begins, the sterile zone begins. We take off our outerwear and pack ourselves into robes with an “entrance” on the back, shoe covers and hats. The bristly Seryozha was given a mask.

The rug is in a recess, so don’t trip.

I compared these measures to changing clothes in the dirty area at the Smolensk nuclear power plant, where we left all our clothes except underwear in the lockers and dressed up in thick snow-white cotton overalls and helmets. good Honeymoon we had!

But let's return to Surgut. On the ground floor of the workshop there is a food warehouse. They are prepared for cooking: washed, cut, peeled.

There are refrigeration units and defrosting chambers.

Dirty dishes also arrive here in carts. The carts are first washed in a separate chamber with the product, and then more thoroughly cleaned in order to be filled with new portions.

It seemed strange to me that meat and fish were cut in the same room.

But when I entered it, it smelled of meat. It was just cut. If they handle the meat, they'll take on the fish.

The meat and fish workshop has refrigerators, cutting tables and a sink. The walls are tiled everywhere; the same requirements apply to operating rooms.

The vegetable shop smells fresh. Just peeled carrots!

Kitchen worker Patimat peels the eyes from potatoes. He says there are many of them in this batch. More than a hundred kilograms of potatoes pass through her hands per shift.

Of course, she doesn't clean hundreds of kilos by hand. This is what the machine does. Two buckets of root vegetables are loaded into it, closed and the drum is turned on. The peel rubs against the sandy interior of the centrifuge. During cleaning, vegetables are watered. At home, I also peel potatoes under running water. The vertical photo shows dirty water draining from the machine.

The unit itself stands in a kind of bath.

We go up to the second floor. In the rooms on the right, food is prepared, sweets and bread are baked. And on the left they are packaged into carts, lunch boxes and carts.

A casserole is an aluminum box for hot food. Lunch boxes serve snacks, cups and partings on board. The cart is used by flight attendants to carry food around the plane.

Up to 1,000 buns are baked per shift, replacing white bread. The machine mixes the dough for them. And the confectionery products are prepared entirely by hand.

They spend 18 minutes in the oven, and after that they immediately go to the packers.

Meet the chef and his crazy pants!

I’m used to the fact that on an airplane they always serve two meals: meat and fish; I was very surprised when they also offered me sausages to choose from. It is known that altitude greatly distorts tastes. For example, on the ground I don’t even remember the existence of tomato juice, when, like on an airplane, I begin to feel its taste in my mouth as soon as the car leaves the ground. Of course I took sausages. And tomato juice.

Let's move on to packaging. Cassalettes are assembled in the hot food department, snacks are assembled in the cold department. The vegetables have just arrived on the second floor via a special food elevator.

Two hours before departure, when it is already almost exactly known how many people will board the plane, they begin to collect lunch boxes and pack them in carts, and hot food in containers.

Everything is done so quickly that food doesn’t sit idle. If the plane is delayed for a long time, this is usually known in advance, so they are collected by the actual departure time. And if the flight is delayed for half an hour, then the packaged food simply sits in a special refrigerator and waits to be boarded.

The cost of a meal set per economy class passenger is 130 rubles.

A set of sauces, dishes and rations for business class. UTair also has an improved economy seat, the price is somewhere between business and economy, in fact: economy seats, but business services.

Boeing trolleys.

Container for hot dishes.

The cart is sealed and the number of servings is signed.

Meals are delivered for the flight based on actual load. If someone is late, the extra portions are taken off board. There is another set of food for 50 passengers. If there are 150 people flying, there should be 153 meals on board.

Loaders carry containers and carts to the elevator. But that's not all, the food journey continues.

Everything is strict at the airport. The security service does not ignore food either.

In this container, the food will travel through the airport to the plane. It will be heated on board and served to each passenger.

This is such manual labor!

After the tour, we treated ourselves to all the possible dishes that the kitchen prepares. Muksun, venison, fruit. Some with wine, some with cognac.

A bag similar to khinkali is a lemon. It is pressed onto the fish without removing it from the fabric so that it does not slip in your hands and the bones do not fall into the plate. Life hack for home! I've already wrapped it up.

Finally, I’ll tell you a few interesting facts.

In the canteen of the Surgut airport, it is impossible for employees to simply eat for a hundred rubles; with this money you can overeat!

Pasta - 4 rubles, mashed potatoes - 6 rubles, cupcake - 8 rubles.

The crew is not allowed to eat foods that cause stomach turmoil before or during the flight. Here is one of the diets provided to flight attendants and pilots.

UTair also opened additional flights from Ingushetia to Saudi Arabia for Hajj. They pass at night so that passengers can eat. During the month of Ramadan, devout Muslims must fast from the onset of morning prayer (prayer at dawn) until the onset of evening prayer (at sunset).

The German company LSG Sky Chefs is one of the largest enterprises in the world, providing in-flight meals to aircraft in the most different countries. LSG Sky Chefs is part of the Lufthansa group, which is the largest airline in Europe and ranks fifth in the world in terms of the number of passengers carried.

LSG Sky Chefs owns the largest catering network, which includes 200 catering companies in 48 countries. LSG Sky Chefs works with more than 300 airlines and produces approximately 460 million in-flight meals per year. This is what the in-flight food production process looks like at one of the LSG Sky Chefs factories located in the German city of Frankfurt am Main.

(Total 21 photos)

1. Business class dinner for short-haul flights. In business class, food is served in real porcelain, unlike in economy class, where plastic and cardboard disposable tableware is used.

2. January 16, 2012. LSG Sky Chefs factories have the strictest hygiene requirements for employees. A mandatory part of work clothing is a robe, hair nets, as well as special masks for those employees who wear beards.

3. Business class dinner for short-haul flights.

4. One of the production workshops where in-flight meals are produced. The workshops of the LSG Sky Chefs factory work non-stop around the clock. Each year, more than 460 million in-flight meals roll off their production lines and are served on more than 300 flights. largest airlines peace.

5. The requirements for the quality of in-flight food are very strict. An additional challenge for in-flight food manufacturers is created by the fact that the increased pressure maintained in a flying aircraft greatly affects a person’s perception of the taste of food. At altitude, regular food seems tasteless and too dry. In addition, most passengers at altitude experience increased thirst. To take all these factors into account, LSG Sky Chefs maintains ongoing cooperation with the Fraunhofer Research Institute (Munich), where they study the effects of altitude on the human body. To accurately recreate flight conditions, a special laboratory is used. Despite the fact that a person's taste sensitivity to salt significantly increases during a flight (food seems bland), LSG Sky Chefs does not simply increase salt and other flavoring additives. LSG Sky Chefs in-flight meals contain as much salt as required according to generally accepted standards. Improving the “high-altitude” taste is achieved through the use of a variety of spices that retain their taste well in flight conditions. For example, ginger, cinnamon and some other spices are well felt by a person even on a flying plane.

6. Business class dinner served on Japanese-bound flights.

7. The production area of ​​LSG Sky Chefs is more than 40,000 square meters.

8. Business class dinner served on Japanese-bound flights.

9. When producing in-flight catering, special attention is paid to the quality of products and overall food safety. Food safety requirements for aircraft crew members are even stricter than those for passengers. All food for the crew must undergo deep heat treatment. The set of products included in the individual ration for each crew member is necessarily different. This reduces the risk that the entire crew will get sick and be unable to work if low-quality food gets on board. Already on airplanes, the name of the crew member for whom it is intended is often placed on the package with individual rations, so that in the event of an accident it is easier to track how poor-quality food got on board.

10. Business class dinner served on Japanese-bound flights. The airline Lufthansa is one of the world's largest consumers of caviar. Every year the airline purchases almost 8 tons of this expensive delicacy.

11. Food is prepared in a factory. Prepared food is packaged in rations, which are stored in special refrigerators that use dry ice. Usually, rations are heated up immediately before the plane takes off while still on the ground.

12. Children's dinner served on long-haul flights.

13. Every day, the LSG Sky Chefs factory bakes about 80 thousand buns.

14. Business class dinner served on short-haul flights.

15. Rations are packaged in such a way that the huge cargo that carries in-flight meals to the airport can be loaded in just five minutes. The LSG Sky Chefs division in Frankfurt operates 116 trucks.

I like to talk about airplanes and people who work in aviation on my blog, because flight safety and the transportation of passengers and cargo depend on them. The planes are refueled, checked for technical condition before departure, luggage is loaded, passengers are boarded, then the doors are closed and the boarding bridge is withdrawn, the plane taxis to the runway and takes off....And the passengers who are comfortably settled in their seats and watching the beauty of the seventh ocean through the windows are ready feed the flight attendants...

The other day I visited the in-flight catering service international airport Roshchino, they showed a small part of what they feed economy and business class passengers on planes that depart from Tyumen airport. Airlines such as UTair, Aeroflot, AzurAir, use in-flight catering services in Roshchino, Nordwind Airlines, Russia, etc.
On average, rations for economy - 1,100 are loaded onto planes per day, for business - 25, and crews - 80.
Productivity can be up to 5000 rations per day.

The title photo shows lunchboxes for economy class passengers, which include a Bun, Cake, Tea, Cheese, butter, jam, as well as disposable cutlery.
For hot casserole.
1. Baked pink salmon fillet/rice with vegetables/steamed green beans
(Nutritional value: Proteins-15.5, fats-18.2, carbohydrates-14.7, kcal-286)

2. Breaded chicken cutlet/boiled potatoes/steamed carrots
(Nutritional value: Proteins-14.9, fats-13.6, carbohydrates-17.3, kcal-251)

3. This is a branded lunchbox for UTair.

4. Lunchbox for the crew with cold snacks. It also comes with a casserole of your choice.

5. The choice of food for business class passengers is of course more varied; if you are hungry now, I recommend having a snack first)) and continuing watching. Cold appetizers.

6. Hot.

And according to the dishes with decoding of what is what.
7. Pork roll with cheese, pepper / fried boiled potatoes / fried onions
(Nutritional value: Proteins-13.9, fats-34.1, carbohydrates-13.9, kcal-419)

8. I don’t know what’s in the almond petals, the rest is clear))

9. Chicken roll/french fries/steamed green beans
(Nutritional value: Proteins-23.3, fats-13.1, carbohydrates-13.6, kcal-265)

10. Pike perch roll with zucchini/fried eggplant/grilled cherry tomatoes
(Nutritional value: Proteins-13.7, fats-14.1, carbohydrates-5.2, kcal-203)

11. Cold cuts (roast beef, baked chicken fillet, beef tongue, olives, bell pepper, lettuce)
(Nutritional value: Proteins-15.2, fats-10.2, carbohydrates-1.6, kcal-159)

12. Sliced ​​vegetables (St. cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, radishes, lettuce, greens)
(Nutritional value: Proteins-1.1, fats-0.2, carbohydrates-3.5, kcal-20)

13. Sliced ​​fish (salmon, shrimp, mussels, squid, lemon, capers, lettuce, greens)
(Nutritional value: Proteins-16.5, fats-11.4, carbohydrates-1.0, kcal-173)

14. Salmon in almond petals/rice mix/grilled cherry tomatoes
(Nutritional value: Proteins-19.1, fats-31.9, carbohydrates-23.0, kcal-451)

15. Pike perch roll with zucchini/grilled vegetables
(Nutritional value: Proteins-13.6, fats-16.1, carbohydrates-6.3, kcal-225)

16. Pork roll with cheese, pepper/fried boiled potatoes/fried onions/grilled peppers
(Nutritional value: Proteins-13.8, fats-35.9, carbohydrates-13.4, kcal-434)

17. Looks very tasty!

18.

19. Legostaeva Larisa Anatolyevna in the labor process. Soon these lunchboxes will be closed and placed in a special container for delivery on board the plane, and then eaten by passengers flying somewhere thousands of kilometers from Tyumen.

20. It’s hot in the cold workshop.

21. Thank you for the tour of the in-flight catering workshop to the chief Efimova Galina Mikhailovna and her deputy Legostaeva Larisa Anatolyevna, as well as to the girls who did not give their names and were embarrassed to take a photo.

22. I was in the in-flight catering shop when I was a child! Everything was different here. Now this is a very modern workshop, equipped with the most modern necessary equipment.

23. Gorchy workshop.

24. The corridors, as well as the workshops, are sterile clean.

25.This machine is used to knead dough for buns!

26. And here the buns are baked. By the morning departure everything will be ready, sealed, packaged and loaded onto the planes. And what aromas!)))

Our excursion came to an end, at this time food was being shipped for the next flight, work went on as usual. Passengers were already waiting to board the flight, and a delicious lunch awaited them from the haute cuisine of the in-flight catering department of Roshchino Airport! Have a nice flight, we say to our friends when we see them off on their flight, Bon appetit! say the in-flight catering workers as they send their products on the plane!

Thank you to Maria Roschino Airport press service for inviting us to the tour.

Thank you for your attention!

It was precisely this development of events that required an increase in factory capacity. For the last three years, there has been a non-stop reconstruction of the enterprise, its redevelopment, and the purchase of new equipment. In March 2004, a new administrative building was put into operation, and thus the production area expanded to 9,000 sq. m. m, a total area the enterprise reached 10,500 sq. m. Today the company employs 1,600 people in four shifts, because the airport operates around the clock.

All these activities made it possible to ensure active growth dynamics in the sales of food rations: in 2001 the increase was 38.8%, in 2002 - 37%, in 2003 - 44.7%, in 2004 - 26.5% (estimate) and the sales volume reached more than 9 million food rations. In August 2004, the factory reached a capacity of 50 thousand rations per day, becoming a serious mass production.

Now the process of redistribution of airlines has stabilized, so subsequent growth, according to the leaders of Domodedovo Air Service, will be determined partly by the arrival of new companies, but mainly by an increase in the number of flights, new destinations and an increase in passenger traffic, including due to the growth in the well-being of citizens, which gives a standard 12-15 percent increase in passenger traffic. Thus, despite the achieved indicators, the factory management sets itself a minimum task - to maintain the positions gained and strengthen them, and a maximum task - to develop production for the long term. It is possible to maintain the current level of growth by further increasing capacity, using modern production and business technologies, and improving the level of services provided. Therefore, in 2005 it is planned to build about 5 thousand more square meters. m of production space within the existing land allotment, plans for modernization and purchase of new equipment are being actively developed, and new markets are being searched.

What is air-catering

The market for catering services in Russia began to develop relatively recently. As for in-flight catering, within the framework of the only domestic airline - Aeroflot - there was only a regulated form of providing passengers air transport meals during the flight. The order of service, nutritional requirements, composition of dishes, etc. were determined by instruction 11/7 of 1979. Accordingly, there was no such thing as a catering business at all. And only when the company became part of the EastLine Group, it became obvious that it would be engaged in the air-catering business.

Aviation catering certainly has its own characteristics and significant differences, which are determined by the on-board service system itself. At the same time, the types of services themselves, in their business structure, have much in common with ordinary catering, which has received quite active development in Russia in recent years.

Domodedovo Air Service has three basic business processes:
• preparing and providing in-flight meals;
• provision of airline services (removal of surplus and disposal of food waste, processing of buffet and kitchen equipment, laundry services, storage of reusable tableware with subsequent packaging, provision of leasing of buffet and kitchen equipment);
• providing meals to passengers railway and third parties.

If the airline does not purchase in-flight food from the factory, then it can only order the sanitization of its dishes, or, for example, simply reload the food from one aircraft to another. Accordingly, within the framework of these processes, all services that are charged and payable are specified.

A significant share of costs in catering traditionally falls on logistics, which in aviation catering is also the most complex process: a large number of components - food, dishes, kitchen equipment, drinks, "bulk" (i.e. everything that does not fit on trays - portioned tea, jam, butter, fruit) - must come together at one time, exactly according to schedule, at one point. And this point is the isothermal body of the autolift (the factory has its own fleet of vehicles, numbering 38 specially equipped vehicles), which carries ready-made food for the flight. During the flight, the passenger receives a ration, or tray, the serving of which includes at least 14-15 items. For example, on an Il-96 aircraft during two flights with a full load and two meals a day, about 2,400 rations are loaded. And to this are added carts, containers, napkins, boilers, dry ice, edible ice, and cold accumulators. As a result, 30 thousand rations must be collected and delivered on board every day 2 hours before departure. At the same time, the factory serves about 120 flights daily. If there are 150 seats on the plane, and 70 people are flying, the company still takes 150 sets, some of which are served.

In-flight meals are prepared using the "Just-In-Time" principle, which certainly reduces the pressure on logistics. After the assortment is formed, cyclicality is established, the volume of food is determined and the delivery procedure and cost are specified. Operational work begins with three-day planning, then adjustments per day. Based on the number of passengers on board, raw materials are ordered. Flight preparation begins 10-12 hours before departure - the countdown is underway: 40 minutes before the end of check-in - the last adjustment, 2 hours before departure - food must be delivered on board, 3 hours - food is placed in the refrigerator, where it is “gets” cold, in 5 hours - the picking begins, in 6 hours - the preparation of cold appetizers ends, in 8 - hot dishes, in 10 - the picking of approaches begins. In this case, various nuances should be taken into account: in the summer, it is necessary to take a large supply of water on board, as its consumption by passengers increases. And, accordingly, logistics become more complicated. In addition, frequencies and slots change, because in the summer the airport operates more intensively and the number of flights increases.

In order for airlines to maintain cyclicality and order meals based on the passenger traffic served, Domodedovo offers about 30 types of meals, 280-300 food rations for passengers of all classes. Naturally, it is not profitable for the factory to produce all 280 dishes every day. The solution is to combine the cycles carried out by the marketing department involved in sales in the aviation market. The point is to reduce the number of meals per week to a minimum. If a company flies in different directions, then it may well receive the same hot meal.

The factory has its own vehicle fleet, numbering 38 specially equipped vehicles.

Service vision

Domodedovo Air Service works directly with airlines. And each airline has its own personality, certain requirements and vision of service. Each company has a service or specialist who is responsible for the service, including flight catering. A presentation is organized for them twice a year, and the assortment changes twice a year. The change corresponds to the transition from the spring-summer to the autumn-winter season.

With an increasing number of airlines, the struggle for passengers lies in the area of ​​improving service, because other factors are almost the same for everyone (airplane, convenient departure and arrival times, ticket price). Passengers are primarily interested not in the cost of fuel or payment for the air corridor, but in how well they were served and fed, how much time they spent getting on board and going down.

The choice of food depends on many factors - the direction of the flight, the specifics of the passengers, the aircraft used, or simply the vision of the person who is doing it. At the same time, airlines, as a rule, focus on regular customers. Based on them, food cycles are introduced, providing that within one menu there are 3 or 4 options for changing dishes. Relatively speaking, in the morning you receive one meal, and if you return on the same plane in the evening, you should have the opportunity to choose something else. And it’s even better when today you have tuna, tomorrow trout, and the day after tomorrow salmon. Another thing is that sometimes companies start to save money. However, a standard meal plan must contain at least three options: poultry, meat and fish. And most companies adhere to this.

Heating equipment used in the hot shop includes high-pressure cookers, fryers, tilting pans, stoves and convection steam ovens.

At Domodedovo, like at any airport, there are base companies - about 12-15. They are actually the trendsetters of the entire range. Nevertheless, an individual assortment minimum is developed for each company, including both standard diets (hot, cold food, canned food, light food) and special types: Muslim, oriental, seafood, medicinal, vegetarian, children's, etc.

Companies' requirements for catering services are also changing as their aircraft fleets and passenger traffic change. Those companies that operate flights, for example, to Europe and America, and have aircraft such as Airbus and Boeing in their fleet, serve passenger traffic, which has higher service requirements. Buying expensive planes, companies are forced to buy corresponding removable pantry and kitchen equipment, carts, and containers. And although this pleasure is not cheap, Western companies understand that these are the basics of the service and do not skimp (for example, they have 3-4 sets of reusable tableware in their assortment). On the other hand, the availability of appropriate inventory and equipment is the necessary minimum, which in the future allows us to move to a higher quality level of passenger service.

The fact that the requirements are growing is also evidenced by the fact that if previously the factory did everything on disposable dishes and in boxes (for Russian airlines), then serving in reusable dishes also required the availability of appropriate equipment. Firstly, the tray formed here still needs to be brought to the passenger, and it can only be brought on specially prepared carts, containers, etc. Secondly, the same reusable dishes require appropriate processing, storage, etc. And this is already additional investments.

Reusable tableware requires proper handling and storage

The arrival of such clients as British Airways and Emirates, who are recognized trendsetters in the organization of in-flight catering, required the factory to make certain efforts to ensure an appropriate level of service. It should be taken into account that these companies are more cyclical and their food supply, to put it mildly, is more varied. The diet for the first class of Emirates airline requires, for example, the presence of live cloves, which the factory is again obliged to provide, in addition, today it is the only company that reviews the food range on a monthly basis.

The formed tray still needs to be brought to the passenger - on specially prepared carts, containers

However, according to the management of Domodedovo Air Service, any diet can be made, it all depends on the amount that the airline is willing to pay for in-flight meals. Typically, the cost of meals for Western airlines is estimated at 4-6% of the ticket price. This value includes not only the cost of the lunch itself, but also its delivery and accompanying services. If we talk about absolute values, the average price of a diet for economy class is from 3 to 6 dollars. British Airways and Emirates, of course, are more expensive - the ability to count money in in this case results in the understanding that excessive savings on food can lead to a reduction in the flow of passengers.

Service a la Low-Cost

The international air catering market is currently at the mercy of multidirectional trends. A group of Low-Cost companies has appeared that do not buy food at all, i.e. everything is aimed at maximizing cost savings. Separate terminals are being built for them. The passenger, if desired, chooses his own food for additional money (for example, a bag of chips). That is, in this case the passenger is exempt from additional airport services. Accordingly, the ticket price for such flights is very low. This is understandable - the entire structure that provides the service is very expensive. For example, a terminal for 6 million passengers per year costs about $350 million.

Raw material caliber

First of all, Domodedovo Air Service is a food production factory. And, note, in large volumes. This means a lot of raw materials are required. In summer, for example, consumption of raw materials reaches 1,500 tons per month. The calculation is simple: on average, a complete diet - salad, appetizer, hot dish, confectionery - weighs 0.5 kg, plus a drink - at least 300 ml; taking into account processing (coefficient 1.5) we get about 1 kg. With a productivity of 50 thousand rations per day, the minimum daily consumption of raw materials is 50 tons.

The choice of raw materials at the factory is approached based on three factors - stability, quality, cost. Moreover, the stability of supplies comes first. In order to provide it for almost every product, the factory has two suppliers. Despite the fact that raw materials are purchased through tenders, the company already has regular suppliers who are given clear preference. At first glance, the factors and conditions of supply are familiar, characteristic of most companies operating in the catering industry. Nevertheless, the procurement of raw materials for the in-flight catering factory has its own characteristics.

The main feature is that the conditions of the on-board service stipulate that everything in the diet should be the same: pieces of fish, meat, chicken - because any passenger wants to get a portion at least no less than that of his neighbor. This applies not only to meat or fish, but also to all other products, including vegetables, fruits, and baked goods. That is, the raw materials must be calibrated.

The management of the Domodedovo Air Service factory claims that it is more profitable to work with domestic suppliers for a number of reasons. But, unfortunately, we have to admit that among them there are very few manufacturers capable of meeting the necessary requirements - supplying a calibrated product. For example, the factory purchases meat to a high degree of readiness (after all, the enterprise does not do any deboning or trimming), while they work with both chilled products and frozen raw materials. So, four years ago, the factory acquired a supplier who offered to supply beef fillet of the required shape, convenient for the slicer used. As a result, the products of this enterprise are purchased without a tender, because there is simply nothing else like it on the market.

At the same time, no matter how much we fought with suppliers to find at least one who could supply buns of the required size, we were never found. For some, the diameter was larger, for others - the height. The factory complains that it is extremely difficult to achieve compliance with requirements from suppliers. Meanwhile, this is an excellent niche for Russian manufacturers, given the fact that in the West there is a whole industry of suppliers specializing in supplying products to catering companies. As a result, Western catering companies do not have the same problems that they face in Russia. For example, the managers of Domodedovo Air Service visited their colleagues in Spain. As it turned out, they do not have their own bakery at all, but nevertheless, different enterprises supply exactly the same buns and croissants.

The same problems arise in our country with fruits and vegetables. In Russia there are no calibrated apples, but from abroad they get all the same ones, even by weight. This is very important because in this business the price cannot be calculated every day. If the apple weighs less than it should, the airline may file a claim. For example, while cherry tomatoes were being purchased in Russia, there were often clarifications of relations with airline representatives who could not understand why the same fruits could not be supplied - after all, if a cherry tomato is supplied, which is not cut, but placed whole, then it must weigh 12 grams and not an gram less or more. As a result, we found a supplier in the West.

For Domodedovo Air Service, confectionery is a priority today. Shortbread flour cakes also have specifics: they should be small, “one tooth”. Again, it was not possible to find a company that could satisfy this requirement. On the contrary, in the West there are entire factories that make small-sized cakes for in-flight meals.

Providing delayed feeding

In part, the problems described above contributed to the fact that the production areas of the Vo Air Service factory, in addition to the traditional hot and cold shops, the assembly area, the buffet and kitchen equipment processing shop, the flight dismantling and waste disposal areas, also include a confectionery shop and a bottling area water and juices.

We started our tour of the factory with the preparation area for raw semi-finished products, where portioning is carried out and from where the workpieces enter the hot shop. The main equipment here is programmable slicers. Noteworthy are the powerful air duct systems designed to maintain the overall temperature at +14°C. In the hot shop, meat, fish, side dishes are cooked, omelettes and pancakes are prepared. The heating equipment used here are pressure cookers, fryers, tipping pans, stoves and convection steam ovens. Hot dishes are packaged in special substrates (cassettes) made of aluminum foil, in plastic substrates of crystallized polyethylene terephthalate, which, when heated on board the aircraft, can withstand temperatures above +150°C without the slightest warping, and also for passengers of first and business classes in porcelain cassettes.

The main difference between a catering enterprise and a regular catering enterprise is that in a restaurant the food is prepared and served, while in an in-flight catering factory the service is delayed. To ensure this, dishes after the hot shop are subjected to blast cooling in a special chamber, where the temperature of the products is dropped from +65 to +4°C.

In the cold shop, salads and cold appetizers are prepared and desserts are served. The confectionery shop produces cakes. It is equipped with a rotary oven, a proofer, and steam convection ovens.

At the bottling and packaging area, water and juices are poured into cups. Moreover, natural juices are bottled without preservatives, pasteurizing them. Interestingly, juice samples are discussed and accepted by the Tasting Council, where airline representatives are also invited. Packaging is carried out by an automatic machine combined with a pasteurizer with a capacity of 45 thousand cups per day. This machine was developed specifically for the factory.

Ultimately, all products end up in the flight assembly area, which is equipped with a conveyor for assembling food rations. Here inspection is carried out, and then the finished dishes go into the refrigeration chamber.

Since July 2003, the Vo Air Service factory has introduced a new line for packaging food rations using a modified atmosphere (MGA). Service Feature railway transport consists of large batches of rations and long term their storage. And food rations packaged using this technology retain their organoleptic properties and can be stored at temperatures from 0 to +5°C for up to five days. This allows consumer companies to order food for the return trip inclusive, thereby significantly reducing their costs. Today, supplying the railway accounts for 10% of the total amount of rations produced by Air Service, and this niche is planned to be expanded. In addition, it is the use of the above-mentioned technology that allows the company to expand sales by providing food to third parties. Therefore, plans include the purchase of another machine for packaging at MGS and more.

It should be noted that the equipment park that has been formed at the factory to date can be characterized as being of different ages: there are new, quite progressive machines, and there is also equipment that has been in service for years. Today there is an obvious tendency towards modernization and replacement, acquisition of modern solutions. For example, Rational combi steamers (and not new ones at that) have been operating at the factory since 1998. On this moment The factory plans to replace them with a new generation of combi steamers - programmable, with remote control, in order to minimize the influence of the human factor when observing food preparation regimes. Note that the share of manual labor at the Air Service factory is 80%. The company also plans to automate the warehouse, which will strengthen control and reduce product losses.

So, today the priority goals of the Vo Er Service factory are: optimization of losses, ensuring consistently high quality of products. All this is not new for food industry enterprises, but achieving your goals guarantees unconditional success.