One of the things people remember in the sky isn’t the seat… but sometimes, it’s the food.
Emirates was been busy last year, serving over 77 million customers over last year.
Here’s the infographic. Prepare to have thy mind blown.
Emirates caters for 490 flights daily, with 149 meals served every minute – totalling 215,000 meals every day, The airline employs 1400 dedicated chefs to make these meals, at the vast Emirates Flight Catering Facility in Dubai, and across partner caterers worldwide.
So what have you all been eating? According to the airline, you’ve been hitting their libraries of 2,200 varied recipes hard each month.
Emirates served 6 million kilograms of fresh chicken, 350,000 kilograms of beef, 266,000 kilograms of Atlantic salmon fillets, 2.2 million kilograms of whole potatoes, 1.7 million kilograms of pasteurised eggs and 3.1 million kilograms of freshly baked breads and pastries, as well as thousands of vegan and vegetarian meals.
That’s a lot of kilograms.
On top of that, to add those special touches Emirates’ chefs used more than 938,000 kilograms of fresh cream, 32,000 kilograms of Masala cashew nuts, 98,000 kilograms of fresh strawberries and 42,000 kilograms of salads from Emirates-owned Bustanica – the world’s largest vertical farm.
Near the front of the plane
First and Business Class customers appreciating the fine quality of products onboard consumed 3.5 million single-serve bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar from acclaimed Italian artisan Monte Vibiano, 14,000 kilograms of Australian Yarra Valley feta cheese, and dined on 1.2 million beef tenderloin steaks in one year. Meanwhile, in First Class, customers enjoying unlimited caviar last year consumed an impressive 10,350 kilograms of the delicacy.
Regionally, on many European routes, Emirates is now treating Economy Class customers to individual pots of Marshfield’s ice cream, creamy organic ice cream with 60% dairy content from a family farm in the Cotswolds, UK. On routes from Ireland, Emirates serves yoghurt from Killowen Farm, a single-origin dairy yoghurt producer.
Snacks? Check
How many packs of mixed nuts did they go through? Go on.
Nope. Wrong Answer.
Last year, Emirates customers enjoyed 2 million packages of mixed nuts in various sizes, 250,000 dates, 22,000 kilograms of Kalamata olives and more than 40 million pieces of gourmet chocolate.
Told you were wrong
Emirates customers also drank 1.2 million litres of orange juice, used 2.3 million teabags and 70,300 kilograms of ground coffee.
Don’t underestimate the soft product
What lessons can an airline take from this? Well, apart from having good caterers, negotiating to buy in bulk and being able to portion a meal to a price, one of the things is not to underestimate the value of the soft product.
Hard products, like seats, inflight connectivity and screens are a big part of the passenger experience, but especially on the longer segments, catering is an important part of that product mix, that can be adjusted seasonally (such as the Festive Season or Ramadan) or even for a day (such as Luna New Year, Valentines Day and so on).
Things like this are what passengers remember when they get off the plane. They might remember how comfortable the seat was if they found a film they liked – but will nearly always remember the food – be it the quality or quantity.
And passengers love to talk and share their memories with colleagues, friends and families as an airline delivers a quality passenger experience at scale.
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