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Through my travels around the globe and visiting various catering operations, I’ve concluded that most aviation caterers tend to operate in a similar fashion. Let me begin by stating that I understand who my clients are and the privacy they deserve from me. I don’t discuss the people flying, their food preferences, or other miscellaneous requests. Yes, I get to prepare meals for famous people, but I rarely get to meet them. Personally I believe their privacy is an ethical thing, something I am trusted not to divulge. As an aviation catering business we don’t have the perfect schedule; we don’t have one specific job to perform. We must learn it all - from shopping for special requests, to dishwashing, floor scrubbing, cooking one of this and one of that, from baking and preparing cold trays to delivery. The hours are crazy - never really knowing how much work you will have in a given day, unlike those of a “normal” caterer. When I say normal, I am referring to a social event caterer who gets days, weeks or even months’ advance notice of pending food orders and production. Aviation caterers tend to get hours, But, I love it that way. Every day is different and every order is different, different foods, different preparation and different mission specific packaging. It would be so boring if I did the same thing every day on the same schedule. I love the variety. I do it because I get the personal satisfaction of having achieved something every single day, a feeling of accomplishment, sometimes of the virtually impossible. How many of you can say that every single day, several times a day? Some days I feel as though we performed miracles in getting an order pulled together and prepared at the last minute and delivered and loaded to save the day. This is not to say that everything always goes smoothly. There are many frustrating moments. Do you ever wonder what goes on in an aviation catering kitchen once the order is placed? Let’s go through an average order we might get in our kitchen from the phone call forward. The phone call and order itself isn’t a quick call. There are loads of questions to ask and be answered . . . some of you may use a network or web based order system so there is little to no personal contact with the caterer. You will fill in the blanks or “tick” the boxes. Although many of the networks, have a communication block for us to email back and forth, we rarely do. It is more efficient, but, I prefer the personal relationship I create with you, the one, placing the order. A discussion about network and web based order systems will be the topic for another article. In so many instances these systems are incredible and very time saving. And . . . you know the price when you click enter. If you call the kitchen directly with an order, the first item of information I need is the name of the airport; then I need the location at the airport, the delivery time (and please no wheels-up time). I need your contact information so I can reach you for questions and I need to know who is responsible for the charges. Once we get all that out of the way the order process begins. Generally one of my first questions is “are there any allergies or special diets?”. (This is a critical question for which you need to know the answer when you place the order. We have an entirely different set of production and packaging procedures if there is an allergy on board.) As we itemize the individual items, I will discuss the method of preparation, the packaging, and whether a flight crew member is going to plate the item and garnish it . . . or whether this is a self-serve flight of prepared platters. This process gives me the opportunity to tell you what our portion size is going to be, and to discuss the length of the flight and the amount of food that will be needed. I can guide you to prevent over ordering and excessive waste. Portion sizes are influenced by whether your passengers are ladies, children, and or men, and their respective ages. Have you ever seen a teenage boy eat? And if there are small children on board do you want us to prepare a special activity box with crayons which only mark on the provided paper so as not to stain the aircraft tables, chairs and carpets, or a new toy to entertain them. Do you want something to keep them occupied and in their seat? Once the order is placed, we divide it into parts, split into job duties. One list is for the shopper. Quite often, we do not have in stock all the ingredients to produce an item, and we must shop to prepare it for you. You may request a specific brand or product that is not kept in stock. You do have corporate loyalties for certain brands, and it is my responsibility to see that they are upheld. There are dozens of brands and flavors of bottled water and sodas that we need to procure for you. It must have a “needed by time” so that everything is as fresh as possible. You wouldn’t want me to get pick-up at a restaurant for you two days in advance. We maintain a daily request form, and your request is placed on the day it is needed. The next division of the order is to pull all hot and all cold items from the order. Say for example, you have ordered a chicken finger platter to be sent plated with dips on the side. The hot production list for the hot side of the kitchen requires the hot chefs to produce the chicken fingers before the cold side of the kitchen can make the platter. A hot entrée will be placed on the hot production with packaging specified for each part of the meal, and the cold side will prepare the garnishes and the cold components of the meal. Each unit and each piece is individually labeled to eliminate mix-ups. The salt free chicken crust is labeled salt-free on your requested packaging waiting to be reunited with the rest of the pieces of your order. The last division of the order is the bakery items. In our kitchen, these are given to the pastry chef to cook for your order based again on the discussion we had when you placed the order. A miniature dessert tray, a cookie and brownie tray, a tray of not free items, or a plated single portion of dessert would go to bakery production along with baked breads, croissants, and breakfast pastries, but, the garnishes would go to cold production. Depending on the packaging specifications this will determine which part of the kitchen packages all the pieces. Again labeling is critical. As the pieces of your order are completed, they are placed in a staging cooler-chiller so that they remain at a safe temperature during the entire process. Once all pieces are complete, they are pulled from the staging cooler and packed per your requests in an outgoing box, labeled for delivery ,and then placed in the refrigerated delivery cooler-chiller for the driver to pull and place on the truck. There are a number of places in these procedures where errors can occur, simply because every order, every client has it their way. A mis-pick at any stage can result in an incorrect order. A garnish can be overlooked; an item can be forgotten by a simple distraction causing the expeditor to stop his work. I believe labeling each item as it is prepared is key to being accurate. It’s too easy to confuse a salt free item with one salted. In our kitchen, the driver also checks the order for accuracy, the temperature, and the packaging requests prior to departing the kitchen. The temperature of the food is taken as it is loaded and then recorded again as it is being unloaded to make sure that the food has remained at the required safe temperature according to the health and food safety guidelines set forth by local governments. The packages are sealed for security, and off they go. The kitchen breathes a sigh of relief ,and gets a figurative pat on the back by the staff as we see another order go out the door successfully. And we start the next . . . I
love what we do!
Let me introduce myself . . . My name is Paula Kraft and I am founder and President of Tastefully Yours Catering, an aviation specific caterer, located in Atlanta, Georgia for 35 years.
Currently I am an active member of the NBAA Flight Attendant Committee Advisory Board and the NBAA International Flight Attendant Committee, Women in Corporate Aviation, Women in Aviation International, National Association of Catering Executives, International Flight Catering Association, the International Food Service Association and the International Caterer’s Association. I have coordinated training programs and clinics for NBAA, EBAA and BA-Meetup conference attendees for over 10 years, created mentoring programs for caterers and flight attendants to broaden their aviation culinary skills, and to assist them in adapting to the unique challenges and constraints found in catering for general aviation. I recognize the need for training and have worked closely with flight departments, flight crews, schedulers and customer service reps at the FBOs to ensure that catering specific training provides information and skills necessary to reduce risk while assisting them in their job duties that include safe food handling, catering security, accurate transmission of food orders, and safe food production, packaging and delivery. I fell into aviation catering quite by accident. I was the in-house caterer and bakery supplier for Macy’s department stores in Atlanta when catering was ordered for a Macy’s customer which was soon to change my life. After the client enjoyed the catering provided, I was summoned to the client’s corporate office to provide several of the items delivered through Macy’s to the executive dining room. Within a week, I was providing food for the flight department and my first order was for the President of a foreign country (as I was too be told soon after). So, here I am, some 35 years later, still loving every minute of every day in aviation catering.
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