Inside the high-tech kitchen behind your in-flight meal

After stepping inside one of the world’s busiest airline catering hubs, I learnt that every in-flight meal is less about cooking and more about precision engineering, logistics and science working seamlessly together.

Just recently, Eyewitness News was part of a select group of guests for a unique behind-the-scenes look at Air France's Business Class food hub.

We visited Food Directions SA in Johannesburg. The largest airlines in the world, including Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Singapore Airlines, and of course, Air France, have been powered by this facility since 2011.

As soon as you walk in, you know this isn't your typical production kitchen. It has a more advanced mission control centre vibe about it.

PRECISION AS A SECRET INGREDIENT

Approximately 25,000 meal components from 850 distinct menu items are prepared daily by a rotating crew of cooks.

Up to 40,000 separate pieces, ranging from dessert spoons to salt shakers, must be polished, packed, and loaded onto a single airplane within a time frame that does not permit a single minute of delay. The plane does not wait if the truck is running late.

"Airline catering is 60% logistics and 40% food," stated Bradley Atkinson, Group Executive Chef.

Controlling the temperature in the kitchen and of the food is also very important. A delivery of fresh vegetables is returned if it is even slightly warmer than 4°C.

How food cools was one of the most interesting (and a little scary) things I discovered. We might let a pot of soup cool on the stove at home. That is a cardinal sin in airline catering.

With an abnormal temperature, bacteria quadruple every 20 minutes, Atkinson told us.

In order to counter this, the kitchen employs blast chilling, which "locks in" the freshness and safety of food by reducing it from scorching heat to fridge-cold in a matter of minutes.

That meal never leaves a well-watched "cold chain" until the flight attendant reheats it for you across the Atlantic. The transfer from the prep table to the aircraft's galley is smooth and chilled.

When serving thousands of passengers in a pressurised tube, "second chances" are non-existent. According to Atkinson: "If it's not right, we don't use it. There’s simply no margin for error."

Why does food on airplanes frequently taste bland? According to Atkinson, your hearing and nose are to blame, not necessarily the cook. Our taste sensations are dulled by the dry air and cabin pressure at 35,000 feet.

"Chefs must 'over-engineer' the flavours to address this. To break through the fog of our palates caused by altitude, they employ stronger flavours, richer sauces and more fragrant plants. The proteins are also precise. While beef remains at a precise 63°C, each piece of chicken is hit at precisely 75°C."

Atkinson added that this was done to guarantee that the meat would be soft rather than like a piece of shoe leather when it is reheated in a tiny convection oven located kilometres above the Earth.

I will never look at an in-flight meal the same way again after spending a day in this environment. It is an achievement of human engineering rather than merely a "snack" to kill time. To ensure that your beef bourguignon tastes just right, hundreds of workers - chefs, drivers, safety inspectors, and cleaners - work in unison.