How Money is been made from flight meal

Emirates Flight Catering

makes 110 million in-flight meals a year.

As the world's largest catering facility, they run 24/7,

cooking up every snack, dessert, and main dish

eaten by the airline's 55 million passengers a year.

And these travelers eat a lot.

In 2018, Emirates passengers downed 72 million bread rolls,

over 134,000 pounds of strawberries, 414 pounds of salmon,

and more than three million pounds of potatoes.

So, how does the world's largest flying restaurant

feed hungry passengers aboard nearly 200,000 flights a year?

Well, before any cooking can even start,

everything has to be unloaded off incoming flights.

Plates, trays, trolleys, you name it.

They're all dropped in the ground floor

of the facility to cleaned.

Dishes are separated into categories

and sent through industrial-sized warewashing machines.

On average, the facility handles

about 3 million pieces of tableware a day.

Those trolleys that bring you drinks during your flight

are also cleaned

Then they're loaded up onto the building's

mile-and-a-half-long monorail

to be taken upstairs.

This system is how massive amounts of inventory

are moved safely through the building.

The monorail has pick up and drop off points

at multiple locations on every floor.

Upstairs is where the cooking takes off.

First, in the cold kitchen, all of the sandwiches

and appetizers are prepped and plated.

Because the different cabins have specific menus,

appetizers and sandwiches for first and business class

are prepared on one side of the kitchen,

while those for economy are prepared on the other.

Sandwiches are sliced and stacked and then feed through

the flow wrapping machine to keep the bread fresh

until it's unwrapped aboard the plane.

Now, on to the main kitchen,

where they're whipping up the hot food.

The kitchen's broken down by four food regions:

Asian, Sub-Continent, European, and Middle Eastern.

Emirates 1,800 chefs from around the world

develop 1,300 different menus a month.

They cover the culinary gambit

of every destination Emirates flies to.

Whenever you're aboard an Emirates flight,

the meal you're served will be inspired

by the region of your arrival destination.

And with over 150 destinations in 85 different countries,

well that's a lot of region-specific meals.

So, if your headed to France, you'll

get a croissant in the morning.

Flying to India?

You'll most likely get a crisp kachori.

Stopping off in Japan?

How about some soba or a bento box?

Emirates says they want to welcome travelers home

or give new visitors a first taste of the region's food.

So what's Emirates specialty dish welcoming passengers

to their hub of Dubai?

The Emirate arabic mezze selection with sticky pudding.

The hot kitchen is where region specific dishes

like the mezze take form.

Chefs mix big vats of vegetables,

grill lines of lamb chops, and top rows

of dishes with garnishes.

Each plate has to taste and look exactly the same.

It's at this point that all of the hot dishes

head to the blast chiller.

They have to be cooled down

to the perfect food-safe temperature.

The last kitchen is for all us sugar lovers:

the dessert room.

Cakes, pastries, and cookies are

all individually mixed, piped, dipped, and baked here.

The facility specializes in arabic sweets, made in house.

The coolest part?

The hydro processor, a high-powered water laser

that cuts perfectly precise slices of cake.

Finally, the assembly room. This is where all

of the pieces converge onto one tray.

It's also where every meal gets a day code printed on it.

It's in UV ink, so as a passenger

you won't actually see it, but it helps Emirates

track the life of each dish.

That way, they're sure they're not serving

flyers any spoiled food.

This is also where salads

and fruit plates are packaged up.

Silverware and dishes are prepared

and all incoming meals are assembled onto trays,

exactly as we'd see them as passengers aboard the flight.

Those trays are loaded back into the trolleys.

That take another spin on that monorail to the ground floor.

Back downstairs, the trolleys are packed

into awaiting high-loader trucks.

Those trucks will be sent out to aircrafts two hours

before departure times to unload meals

for hungry passengers waiting aboard.