- We're here in Atlanta, Georgia
and we are gonna team up with their chefs
to see how they make their food taste good
at 30,000 feet in the air.
We're gonna start the day off at Gate Gourmet
to see how food is being prepped and packaged,
ending the day at Delta's training facility
to see how that food ends up on your tray table.
I'm excited to get a taste of what
Delta One customers have been eating this whole time.
- Welcome to Gate Group for Delta Airlines.
The partnership we've had with Delta
has been for probably about 20 years.
- So Gate Gourmet is essentially
the caterer for Delta.
- Absolutely.
- You guys are providing the facility--
- All of the production, the menu development,
all of the food and beverage,
everything that goes up above.
I'll let Christian tell you a little bit more
about how he works with his team on that.
- So where does this process begin?
When you're coming up with a dish
you want to put on the in-flight menu,
what do you have to consider?
- There are a lot of things.
A lot of people think that airline food is all frozen meals,
but pretty much I would say 95% of everything
is made fresh daily, it's just done in large volumes.
So we feed about 100,000 people a day,
and we transport about a half million a day
around the world.
We have about 45 different menus
that are flying currently.
- Wow.
- So Katie, today we're gonna work on a salad
that we're currently running on our menus.
So this is a harissa shrimp, and arugula, apple slaw.
We've got a lot of great feedback on it
from our passengers.
We're just gonna roast some shrimp.
We have some 16/20s here with the tails left on.
We have some harissa.
Harissa is a Tunisian pepper.
One of the challenges with cooking
for food that's going to be served
at altitude is the flavor.
So as you go up in altitude,
humidity actually reduces a little bit.
And because you have reduced humidity,
food doesn't taste as pronounced.
We're gonna need a bit of some cilantro,
and then we need some salt, and some olive oil.
And then we're just gonna take this lime here, perfect.
And you're gonna just take these and stir that up,
make sure it's well incorporated.
- You mentioned you've been getting
really good feedback on this dish--
- We have, yeah.
- Are there some things that were just a no-go?
- We're basically cooking food,
we're having to chill it,
and then we have to reheat it again
once we're on the airplane.
So, it's that reheating piece that gets
a little tricky with certain foods.
- [Katie] Right.
- You probably won't ever have a great
french fry on an airplane.
- Right.
So this gets roasted?
- It does, yep.
And we only cook it for about eight minutes or so.
We're cooking it all the way through,
and then we're quickly gonna blast-chill it,
so the shrimp stay nice and plump
and juicy so they're like a marinated shrimp,
right on top of the slaw, which we're gonna make next.
- Cool.
So, what happens when there's a flight delay?
I know that happens to me relatively often.
- So in airline lingo we call that an IROP.
That's when you have an interruption to the operation.
There is a team that basically is assigned
to wherever that is happening,
and they're doing an assessment of all the
different things that are going on.
All of our food is held in a refrigerated area
prior to being dispatched to the flight,
and we have very strict timelines
that that can sit there before it becomes unusable.
So the team will assess how long the IROP's
potentially going to happen,
and they're gonna make a decision
whether or no the food can be served,
or if it needs to be remade.
- So are delays the worst thing
that could happen in this scenario?
- Delays are one of the worst things
that can happen in this scenario.
- [Katie] This looks so good!
- Super fresh, nice citrus, little bit of sweetness.
It's gonna balance quite nicely with the harissa shrimp.
So Katie, I've grabbed our roasted shrimp out of the oven,
you can see how nice and moist that is.
Now we're gonna put it in the blast chiller
and cool it down very quickly.
- Cool, it smells so good.
- So while we're waiting as our shrimp to cool down,
I wanna show you another fun dish
that we're working on today, rosemary brined chicken.
And then we're gonna lay it out on a nice sheet pan,
and we're gonna roast it in the oven,
get it nice and golden brown.
- [Katie] How do different proteins get treated,
seafood versus steak, versus poultry?
- We partially cook proteins that are whole muscles.
So for instance, our steaks.
- Ah, okay.
- All of our proteins like chicken, pork, fish, and shrimp,
they have to be cooked to the USDA guidelines.
- So are you ever dealing with maybe
part of your produce order doesn't show up,
or you have to substitute an ingredient
for romaine lettuce recall?
Because I'd imagine every decision you're making
is a huge decision.
- Last summer we had a crab cake shipment
that was coming in, as raw material to our plant in France,
and the order got held up in customs,
and it took almost four weeks for it to be released.
We have printed menus that we're dealing with,
we have folks that are expecting to get on a plane
and be able to be served what they're gonna be
ordering from the menu.
So we had to make a very quick call
to find out where can we find other sources of crab,
and how can we get that all together
to the kitchens that need it.
Now that we've cooked all of our proteins,
our shrimp and our chicken today,
we've got them blast-chilled down,
we're gonna go ahead and plate up the salads.
We'll put this on here, you wanna put about
an ounce and a half of the slaw on top.
- [Katie] And we are obviously scaling
everything for a reason.
- [Christian] That's it.
- How much of an impact would it have
if I was putting a little too much?
- You're really gonna mess up my production,
because I'm going to have to make more product.
And then let's go ahead and put three shrimps on there.
Beautiful, and then we'll just finish that
with a nice lime wedge on the side of the plate.
- So, this is how it will go to the plane?
- It is, you just put a lid on top of that,
that'll be boarded on our tray setup,
which we'll go see in just a little bit.
- Cool, it is cold in here.
We are working in a giant refrigerator.
- That's it, we were in our hot foods area earlier.
Now after everything's cooked and cooled,
it's brought here and it's assembled
into the final dish.
It will be securely locked and it will
go out to the airfield.
So we're gonna go ahead and build that
right on our tray setups.
- Over here?
- That's perfect, you can see how there's
a little non-skid on there?
- Yes!
- It's a very intricate balancing act,
to get all the equipment provisioned properly.
This was a salad that was done earlier.
Of course we have our harissa shrimp.
- Here's our chicken setup.
- Yep, so we've had these ones pre-built,
you can go ahead and take our chicken
that we've cooked previously,
let's go ahead and load those into the container.
We'll just go ahead and put a lid
right on top of there,
squish it down.
- Where are these headed after this?
- So these are gonna go into our oven,
and then we're gonna stage these
with the rest of the supplies,
and they will go out to the airplane.
So you can see we have a very tight space to work within.
So, we're gonna go ahead and put our chicken right in here.
This is what our first class flight attendants
that are in the galley,
they're gonna actually remove these out
and they're gonna plate this.
What do you say we go taste the chicken and the shrimp?
- Let's do that, I'll bring this.
(laughing)
- We have our harissa shrimp with our celery apple slaw,
and we have our rosemary brined chicken
with our cheesy polenta,
and brocolini with roasted tomatoes.
- It looks delicious.
I'm gonna go shrimp first, can I lime us?
- Yeah, please do.
My favorite.
- Me too!
It's so good.
It's so bright and clean,
a little bit of spice, a little bit of brightness
and acidity, it's everything I want basically.
- Perfect.
Let's dig into that chicken and see how that tastes.
- I'm gonna get a little bit of everything.
It's very tender.
The vegetables are cooked perfectly,
they're not overcooked, there's a little bit of bite still.
- Very good.
- So, in the air, it wouldn't taste like this right?
- I'll teach you a little trick
that we kind of do to see how we think things will taste.
Let's go ahead and cut a little piece of shrimp here.
Hold your nose, eat the shrimp,
swallow, and then let go.
- It's still delicious!
- But do you see the difference?
- It is a little muted.
Holding my nose is like perfect balance.
I think what most people would consider
well-seasoned, that's really cool.
- That's what the effect of the less humidity
has on your flavor profile.
- Wow, it's a big difference.
- Yeah, changed your mind on airline catering?
- It most definitely has.
I am impressed.
- We're gonna take you now out
to one of our aircraft and let you see
how the flight attendants actually
deliver this experience to our customers in the galley.
- Oh my gosh, great.
(funky music)
- Welcome to our mock aircraft simulator room.
- Thank you, I just came from the Gate Gourmet kitchen,
and walking into this room was a surprise,
to see an entire airplane.
You're gonna take me through a little bit
about what goes on onboard during meal service.
- Let's go.
This is a real 767 galley, first class galley.
And these are all of our ovens.
All of our ovens are convection.
We don't have microwaves onboard.
When I get onboard the aircraft,
our caterers have generally been on
and catered the aircraft with all of our tools,
all of the food necessary for the flight.
After takeoff, we turn our meals on to cook,
and by the time we're ready to serve them,
they're perfectly cooked.
- Oh my gosh, this is so cool.
- So here's one chicken.
Alright, so the chefs have gone to a great service for us
as far as telling us exactly how to
put everything on our plates.
This is the brocolini, on the center of--
- Wow, it's so specific.
- It is, it is.
- Everything is intentional,
I've noticed throughout my day today.
So chicken to the left..
- Chicken to the left.
- Trying to make mine look like yours.
- A little bit on top of the potatoes.
And then we're gonna just drizzle the finish,
which is the thyme gravy.
And voila!
- It looks just as good as it did in the kitchen.
- [Beverly] You did a great job.
- Thank you so much for kind of walking me through
a day in the life, really.
- Well thanks for helping me in the galley,
it was such a pleasure to have you onboard with us today.
- Thanks so much.
Thanks for watching, for more how to make it, click here.
(funky music)