Narrator: Every single dish is made from scratch at the Qatar Airways catering kitchen in Doha. It churns out more than 200,000 fresh meals a day, even for regional short-haul flights. It all needs to be prepared about 48 hours before takeoff. Felipe: I think perhaps the biggest challenge is just ensuring that there's consistency and that everything runs smoothly. Narrator: The chefs here believe it's part of the reason the airline has been named No. 1 in the world for the eighth time since 2011. This kind of cooking used to be the standard in most flights in America, too, no matter what cabin you flew on. But today, most US airlines don't run their own kitchens, opting to buy from catering services instead. So why has economy airplane food gone from luxury to a point of ridicule in the US? And why do so few airlines still cook their own meals?

No workers are allowed to step foot in the kitchen without walking through this air shower corridor first. Felipe: To ensure that we have no biological or any physical contaminants going into the kitchen. Narrator: This is Felipe Hempe's playground. Four thousand people from 38 countries work at the Qatar Aircraft Catering Company, or QACC. It's a part of the Qatar Airways Group. The team develops new menus every three months. All the produce is fresh, even though they're operating in a food desert. They go through 30 metric tons of fruits and vegetables daily and use custom machines to help prep them for meals. Like this bin, that can wash 12,000 peppers a day. And this machine that peels six cantaloupes in under a minute. Other produce, like dragon fruit, strawberries, and white asparagus, get a more delicate treatment. They're peeled and carved by hand.

Felipe: It's a big routine making almost 200,000 meals a day. The team is rotated throughout their time working here. Narrator: Inside the hot kitchen, the aroma of cumin, garlic, and onions fills the air. Chefs prepare dishes of several different cuisines, from Indian to Arabic and Asian. We base them mostly on the demographics of that flight. For example, for America, we have a lot of traffic from the Indian subcontinent. Narrator: They use over 300 potatoes every day to make aloo tikki, a popular street food in India. The kitchen goes through 36,000 whole fresh eggs a week. And another 3.5 tons of pasteurized egg whites are turned into 12,000 omelets a day. Even the smallest change can be costly. Felipe: We need to ensure that we're going to be able to meet the quantities without having to make any substitutions.

The moment we have any substitutions, then menu cards will be affected and things like that. Narrator: There's also a big emphasis on making most food from scratch, even for items that are often bought frozen or premade, like sausages and pasta. Felipe: If you're ordering ravioli from economy class, you're getting freshly made pasta, which, not many airlines do that. Narrator: Bread products are also prepared on-site. Bakers churn out 10,000 croissants an hour, as well as handmade focaccias. Pastry chefs design new desserts every quarter, like these chocolate brownies made from scratch. Felipe: We're giving this in economy. And it's a homemade eggless brownie, tastes really good, with a mousse underneath. Narrator: While people here handle food all day long, taste-testing is only reserved for a select few. Felipe: For each of our kitchens,

we have a centralized tasting area. So I'm here with Chef Hareesh, who's our executive chef for QACC. Our senior chefs will taste the food, log it down, and give their comments. If something does not pass our criteria, we redo the meals. Pretty good. Yeah. You agree? Narrator: Qatar Airways has a total of 270 international flights leaving from Doha per day. And on average, the airline serves 350 meals on each flight. This facility also provides meals to other One World Alliance partners that fly out of Doha and to the 19 lounges at Hamad International Airport. All the food is halal, prepared in accordance with Islamic dietary laws, because Qatar is a Muslim country. So, for example, you won't find any pork on the menu. But when it comes to drinks, the airline does serve alcohol once you're up in the clouds, unlike some Muslim carriers, like Saudia or Kuwait Airways,

where it's banned. Once each dish is finalized, it's stacked on a tray and labeled. Felipe: The reason we put a barcode is to ensure we have traceability for every dish, as well as for the team on the other side to be able to easily find what they need for assembly. Narrator: It also helps them track any food safety issues down the line. We can trace it all the way back to the person that made it, the day they made it, the time they made it, and we can then further investigate if there's a need. Narrator: The trays are cooled for 90 minutes to prevent the growth of any bacteria or pathogens. And then ... Felipe: Temperature's checked once again by our infrared thermometer. And the food is covered, scanned, and sent for storage. Narrator: It's not possible for the airline to prepare everything on the day of the flight, so usually, they make food in advance.

and refrigerate it for one day at the most. Any longer, and the taste and texture could change, especially for starchy foods like rice or pasta. But nothing is fully frozen. This cooling chamber is set to below 5 degrees Celsius and can store 3,500 trays at a time. A robotic arm adds and removes trays as needed across 30 levels. In the cold kitchen, workers prepare fruit bowls, dips, and about 12,000 sandwiches a day. Many of these items end up on short-haul flights, which are less than three hours long. Peter here will request our mashed potatoes. Narrator: A few hours before the flight takes off, the food trays that were stored in the chiller are brought back in for portioning. Workers on this line have their eyes at all times on the golden sample. The combos are endless and change depending on the route. The economy meals are dished up on trays and packed away.

Business class meals are temporarily portioned in these foil containers. Flight attendants will later plate and serve these dishes, paying a lot of attention to the presentation, which will ultimately look like this. Qatar Airways tries to bring hints of luxury to economy, too, in the details. They offer 18 meals that customers with special dietary needs can preorder. Felipe: We have sort of our religious meals. We also have our medical meals, and then we have our specific meals, like child meals, etc. Narrator: The culinary team has designed 50 meal choices for economy and first class each and 150 for business class that are dished out based on a flight's route and duration. Every cabin gets real silverware. All these items are dried, hand-polished, and assembled again, ready for the next flight. We're always looking at ways to reduce single-use plastic. We are looking at materials for our meal kits to be able to have less impact on the environment.

Narrator: Qatar Airways won several awards, including the APEX Award for best food and beverage. But they can't maintain high standards by only sourcing local products, as Qatar is one of the hottest and driest countries in the world, with no lakes or rivers. Growing things here is hard. Currently, we have more imported ingredients than local. However, this is something that we're trying to change. We're working together with a lot of local farms and fisheries to provide some of our products. Narrator: That includes tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, and bok choy. The trays are stacked in these carts that are rolled onto trucks that head for the tarmac. The trolleys are pushed onto the aircraft and locked into the galleys. Flight attendants then work their magic. We have newer-generation ovens, which allow individualization of temperature and humidity when it comes to reheating the meals.

Narrator: Food has been served on planes since the 1920s. But back then, it was handed out cold because there was no way to heat it on board. In the US, United Airlines opened the world's first airline kitchen in 1936 in Oakland, California, with just six employees making about 60 meals a day. Announcer: Regardless of the season, your crossing will be smooth. Narrator: In those days, the US airline industry was regulated by the federal government. So carriers were legally required to serve every passenger an entree, two vegetables, a salad, dessert, and a drink as part of their ticket price. But the glory years of airline travel and food were the '50s and '60s. Announcer: It was nice to relax in comfort as pleasant as our own living room and to be served with such courtesy. Narrator: Flight attendants on Pan Am made real scrambled eggs in the galley.

Old posters showed them slicing and serving roast beef right from the trolley. And hot meals were served even on domestic economy. But in 1978, President Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act, allowing airlines to set their own fares, routes, and services. Competition immediately heated up. Airlines quickly cut flight prices to attract customers but looked for other ways to make up for lost revenue, like slashing food options. In fact, in the 1980s, the head of American Airlines, Robert Crandall, famously came up with the idea of removing just one olive from every salad, and that reportedly saved $40,000 a year. In 2010, Continental, which is now United Airlines, became the last major US airline to end free domestic meals in coach. These days, the term airline food has become a joke in the US. Many domestic flights in economy offer pretzels and nuts at best.

And low-cost carriers like Spirit Airlines give nothing unless you're willing to pay up. Passengers have even criticized long-haul meals in business class from carriers like United. But all US airlines are private or public, and they claim some international carriers, like Emirates, Qatar, and Singapore, have an advantage because they're state-owned. These days, many airlines use a third-party caterer for hot meals. The largest players are Gate Gourmet and LSG Group. That's the company that caters for several major airlines, like Delta and Air New Zealand. Their head of culinary, Justin Koen, works closely with LSG to develop recipes and prepare 6.7 million meals a year just for Air New Zealand and its lounges. Look, I think I've probably got the best food job in the world, to be honest. I get to fly around the world, taste brilliant food, meet amazing people, and deal with big, hairy problems.

I'll be showing you guys a little venison dish that we've got serving in-flight at the moment. Narrator: He says the biggest challenge is making food that will taste good at 32,000 feet or above. On some planes, your taste buds are about 30% less sensitive to sweet and salty foods. That's because of the pressure, dryness, and engine sound. In older 777s and A320s, the cabin is pressurized up to 8,000 feet, so it feels like you're eating lunch on Machu Picchu. And humidity on board can sit as low as 12%, less than some deserts. When you have a dry mouth and a worsened sense of smell, foods can be twice as bland. So historically, that meant airlines piled on the salt for you to even taste the food, sometimes leaving passengers feeling bloated. But in new planes, manufacturers are making

conditions on board easier on your body. In the A350s, A380s, and 787s, cabins are pressurized up to 6,000 feet. So instead of Machu Picchu, it feels like you're eating dinner in Denver. And because new planes are made of more carbon fiber, it's possible to increase humidity to about 24%. Still, Air New Zealand prepares for all conditions. Justin: You have to be very precise in your cooking temperatures, not only in production, but also in-flight. We then have to heat it to the exact 12 minutes that we specified. And you know, should anything happen, like turbulence, it kind of throws those timings out. And so yeah, it has to be very precise, very specific. Narrator: That's a lot to remember for flight attendants. Justin: Also understanding that our cabin crew are not chefs. Right? They're doing the best that they can.

Narrator: To make their lives easier, Justin's team avoids serving certain foods altogether. Justin: Things like fried foods don't heat up too well, as well as pastries. Narrator: Another hurdle is the sheer scale of the operation. Justin: There's probably around 200 dishes flying at any one time getting made here out of Auckland. You take in your special meal requests. There's 14 different types of special meals, and so you can see how quickly that number compounds across all the different courses, different cabin classes. Narrator: All these challenges feel overwhelming, but Justin isn't easily intimidated. Pressure's a gift, in my opinion. You know, diamonds are created from pressure, so we embrace it, we roll with it, and that's just the airline industry. Planes need to go on time, and catering must be there. Narrator: Meanwhile, demand for in-flight catering keeps growing worldwide.

As the number of airline passengers is expected to rise from 4.5 billion in 2019 to 4.7 billion in 2024. And some airlines in the US are beginning to shift strategies again. Recently, American Airlines opened a brand new facility in Dallas that prepares nearly 15,000 fresh meals a day. They're mostly reserved for their international routes or passengers in premium cabins. The airline says the in-house kitchen helps American cater flights more efficiently and serve customers traveling from their largest hub. Emirates, the UA's national carrier, is a big player in the business, making over 77 million meals a year, even for short-haul flights. And they'll cater their menu based on destination. So if you're headed to Paris, you'll get a croissant in the morning. Flying to Mumbai? You'll most likely get kachoris. Stopping off in Japan? How about some soba or a bento box?

And if you're heading to the airline's home base in Dubai, you'll get the Arabic mezze selection. It also specializes in Middle Eastern sweets, all made in-house. The assembled trays are loaded onto trolleys that run along this 1.5-mile monorail. It's how massive amounts of inventory move safely through the building. Back in Doha, Felipe's team has ways of figuring out which meals passengers actually prefer. Felipe: We do something called offload checks three or four times a week. We will personally go and check what's coming from the flights, and then we can sort of see the trends of what people are eating, what they're not eating. Narrator: The cabin crew also carry a tablet to gather feedback on meals and send those reports directly to catering. Using that data, the kitchen can supply the aircraft with more dishes that people want while reducing the meals they hardly touch.

And that also helps cut down food waste. So, after all this, what's the favorite meal of the man who's tried them all? Every day, we're tasting food. I have a soft spot for Asian food. We keep our food pretty authentic. And I think that's very important for our passengers as well.

How Qatar Airways Prepares 200,000 Meals From Scratch Every Day | Big Business | Business Insider

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