dnata Catering to Dish up 18 Million Meals for Festive Global Travelers
dnata, a leading global air and travel services provider, will cook up 18 million meals for its airline partners throughout the world in December, ensuring passengers experience an indulgent culinary journey.
dnata’s teams of award-winning chefs will begin to dish up the most popular global festive meal of traditional roast turkey from mid-December. Some airlines will serve their guests a gentle starter of local prawn cocktail or mixed grain and cranberry salad before progressing to the showstopper. While passengers will consume a total of 6.9 tonnes of meat, a typical meal will include the essential ingredients, including savoury sage and onion stuffing, crispy roast potatoes, and tender Brussels sprouts.
Global Menu Variations
Travelers should save some space after their meal, however, with a choice of delightful gastronomical desserts which vary depending on where their journey begins. The traditional mince pie, Christmas cake and festive-themed chocolates are prepared for airlines jetting out of the UK. In Australia, passengers will be greeted with the choice of warm fruit pudding, Christmas pudding cheesecake, or gingerbread-spiced crumble topped mousse.
In the USA, a popular special dessert amongst American airline partners is Pumpkin pie with spiced mascarpone or cream, or Pumpkin cheesecake and stewed apples.
Robin Padgett, divisional senior vice president for catering and retail, dnata, explains the process of creating a festive menu: “An airline’s menus are planned out once per year, and many airlines have cyclical menus to reflect the seasonal changes.
“Festive menus are signed off in November, after they have been developed by our award-winning chefs. Recipes are then created for all our global stations along with loading and plating guides with photographs of each stage, to ensure consistent delivery.
“We also take the special requirements of our airline partners into consideration, with Halal-prepared meat as well as tasty vegetarian alternatives. Special meals account for 45 per cent of total meals provided for our big airline carriers.”
dnata also provides catering services to airline partners via tailor-made on-board retail offerings.
“We’ll ensure that passengers of our retail customers also receive the festive experience with turkey, cranberry and stuffing sandwiches and a mince pie to purchase as they make their special journey,” Padgett says.
Innovation to Reduce Waste
While preparing large quantities of festive meals, dnata Catering’s teams collaborate closely with airline partners to examine consumption patterns and utilize predictive analytics to enhance food and beverage loading for in-flight services. This careful analysis not only helps minimize food waste but also reduces the fuel consumption that comes with carrying excess weight. Additionally, whenever possible, dnata Catering aims to source local ingredients to lower the food miles associated with its menus.
“We take great pride in the confidence our global clients have in us to deliver exceptional meals made from locally sourced ingredients for their passengers,” Padgett concludes.
dnata’s catering and retail division is one of the world’s leading inflight hospitality providers. In the first six months of the financial year 2024-25, dnata’s customer-oriented teams produced over 50 million meals, serving full service, low-cost and VIP carriers from more than 60 locations.
