- How is the food catering loaded on to the world's biggest aeroplane behind me?
What an interesting process in the kitchen here!
- Sam, we wash 14,000 glasses a day here.
- [Sam] Ooh!
Wow!
- Welcome to our show kitchen.
- They're going to show me what kind of food I will get on board.
- [Both] Welcome aboard Singapore Airlines.
Lunch is ready!
- I am going to try out the Western option designed by chef Dennis.
- Kung Pao chicken.
- Ooh.
- Oh no!
First time in to a catering truck.
This is the chilled appetiser.
He makes 300 pillows a day.
I think that for the cabin cleanliness here, you know, you can tell that Singapore Airlines
have done a lot of work behind the scenes.
Guys, this is heavy.
This is almost 30 kilograms.
Today, I've taken a field trip out here to the airport to learn and watch how the food
catering is loaded on to the world's biggest aeroplane behind me, an A380.
- And now that the safety procedures are done, now the driver will get up and open the door
and change the trolleys.
- Wow, first time in to a catering truck.
You have to climb up really high up here.
Isn't this amazing?
There's an elevator that can go up to the aeroplane door level.
Not bad - we should use this catering truck for aeroplane spotting as well because you
can go up and down, like a lift!
(Knocking)
They only have one hour to load up the whole A380, so everything has to be
arranged in a perfect order to be able to go in and out readily.
This is the passage - now that the catering truck has reached the second door, we can
come inside like this.
This is how they offload and load the new catering.
- Now they are first loading the new, fresh laundry and linen.
- And now he's also removing the old dirty ones back.
- Yeah. - I see.
So now you can see the cabin here.
Singapore Airlines - very clean I must say.
They remove all the dirty covers and during the turnaround, they put fresh ones on.
I don't think that every airline is doing this, honestly, but I think that, in terms
of cabin cleanliness here, you know, you can tell that Singapore Airlines has done a lot
of work behind the scenes here.
And this is the chilled appetiser in this cart.
This is going to the galley.
Let me give you a hand.
Food, going inside.
What's this inside here?
What's this cold pack here?
Ice? - Ice.
- Oh, just ice.
And I'm taking out all the trash.
Guys, this is heavy.
This is almost 30 kilograms.
This is such an interesting experience.
I love this kind of work because I get to see what's behind all of the preparation and
of course I'm just here for acting, pretending to help out, but still, I learn a lot.
- Sam, in total, we loaded 14 on the upper deck and 25 on the lower deck.
- Now we're complete.
- Yep.
- Quick - that was less than a one hour turnaround.
- Yes, I can teach you.
- Yeah?
- First, there's a unit, there's a unit... - From where?
Ah here, from here.
Ah nice!
I mean, I love this pillow.
Look at how nice the pillow is - the pillow is plush.
Economy class in Singapore airlines - good pillow!
But imagine this man here - he makes 300 pillows a day.
After one hour of hard work, what a transformation.
Everything is just like brand new.
Everything here just feels so fresh.
- Welcome to Gate Gourmet, Zurich.
We're going to give you a behind the scenes tour in our facility where we produce up to
65,000 meals a day.
- Come on, let's go.
- [Sam] Let's go!
- So Sam, this is our goods receiving area where we decant most of our products.
We make a security check and a quality check here before items are loaded in to these grey
bins and stored away in our dry store.
So here we start our washing process for all the incoming materials from the airlines.
- The interesting thing about this conveyor belt is that all the trays and the plates
go this way and all the garbage goes up there, so what an interesting process that goes on
in the kitchen here!
- Okay Sam, so here on the clean side of the three and a half minutes washing, the equipment
comes out clean and washed, disinfected by temperature and by chemicals.
- Wow!
- We wash it with chemicals and with hot water.
- All done by machine in three and a half minutes!
- No hand washing!
Sam, we wash 14,000 glasses a day and all of them need to be spotless.
- Let me have a look.
Yeah, I can see from top to bottom.
Spotless.
And how many do you break every day, here?
- Oh, we can't say but it's not that many.
- I didn't see you guys.
You guys are either here or behind.
- I knew I was going to meet you here some day.
- Yeah.
- We're going to make one video so you will see it on YouTube soon!
- So, not only does the glassware and the china need to be washed but also the trolleys
are cleaned and disinfected.
- Sam, do you know what this is here?
These are all the oven racks, we call them, where we place the meals for later in the
oven in the aircraft.
And they are also washed - they are very clean, very washed and sanitised.
- [Sam] So now we are going to the kitchen.
That's why we're doing this, right?
- Yes, correct. - Okay, got it.
How many times do you do this everyday?
- I can do that up to twenty times.
- Ooh, it smells very nice actually. - This is the hot kitchen.
- It smells nice.
- One of our biggest constraints here is consistency.
In order to get every meal cooked the same, we have invented CRA - coordinated recipe assembly.
We do this collectively.
So if you look at this trolley, we have a sheet here where everything is weighed for the recipe.
The chef has the recipe and he can look at it - he knows what he needs to cook and for how many.
And in order to keep this assembly, this trolley is all ready for the chef.
So the chef is getting the trolley and then he can start, basically, cooking.
- [Sam] This is a boiler, right, this is a boiler?
- This is a boiler.
- I see, for boiling the vegetables?
- Yes, you can boil, you can braise.
You can also slow cook - it's a multi-functional tool.
Everything is still done very conventionally like in any other kitchen you can find.
- This is rare. - That is correct.
- Why is it like that?
- They are only colouring it here - afterwards, you will see, that it will go in to the oven
where we sear it.
- From the chicken breast which you just saw being fried, we produce about 1000-1200 every day.
- So this is where we cook everything - you saw the chicken just now.
After it's cooked, it's put in here.
A cooked and chilled process.
- [Sam] Aah.
In here they are chilling, yeah.
Woah!
- [Manager] And what is this?
It is danger!
- [Sam] Danger? - Chilli powder.
Sam, one of the things that we are very proud of in this kitchen is that we still have a
dedicated patisserie.
We still make our desserts and cakes in-house.
Come on - can you smell it?
Still hot.
- Ooh.
- Look at it.
- Oh, crumble.
- Crumble with rhubarb.
- Wow!
Guys, I wish you could smell it through the camera!
This is for...
What is this?
- (He speaks foreign language)
- Okay, so this is the base for the cake.
Now that we have seen the cooking, we have to see the preparation and here we see the
dishing out and the preparation for the next flight.
- Okay, this is the packing here, the assembly.
- We call it "making a pack."
Are you hungry?
- Very hungry.
You are ensuring consistency in the weight.
- Correct.
- More or less the same, right?
Every single plate.
- No, every...
- Has to be exactly the same?
- It has to be exactly the same.
- Wow.
- Right, this is your rhubarb cake.
Look at it.
It's like in the bakery.
- So this is the final product?
- That's the final product.
- Ooh.
- And now it will go in to the bowl.
- Look at this.
Oh my God.
This is the crab with the asparagus.
I love it.
And you have to pick the good one, right? - [Woman] Yes.
- Yeah.
- Sam, one thing I wanted to show you - what we are really proud of and what we do here
- is bringing people in to the work life again, in to the system, people who had maybe a burn-out,
who have left the workforce and who are slowly returning.
We have a dedicated area here for them.
They are doing lighter duties - they do, for instance, cutlery packing, checking the cutlery
- that it is clean, that it is packed and with a napkin inside and collecting all of those items.
Those people are special to us because we become like a family.
We work together as a family and we are proud to help them actually come back in to the workforce.
80 people who help us to make 65,000 passengers happy each day.
- Welcome back to Singapore Airlines.
I just came on board and the flight's really, really full but I was very lucky - at check in,
I was able to get one of the bulkhead seats; 91 Delta.
Yeah, it sounds scary.
91 - all the way at the back.
And this is a bulkhead seat.
You have unlimited leg room.
So I was really, really happy with this seat here and, of course, I'm looking forward to
seeing all of the catering later.
- Would you like to have any chicken or beef saute?
- Chicken saute please.
- Sure, certainly.
- The first course is the famous Singapore Airlines saute.
I just love the peanut sauce on the saute.
- [Both] Welcome on board Singapore Airlines.
Lunch is ready!
- I am going to try out the Western option designed by chef Dennis and also the Asian
option designed by chef CK.
Let's see which one is better.
So this is the dish that I was watching Chef Dennis make yesterday.
- Hi Sam.
Welcome to our show kitchen.
- Ooh.
- It's slow cooked veal cheek.
- Veal cheek.
- This is really, really specific for the Swiss.
This (mumbles), breast, veal cheek.
- So you like this kind of...
And it's very soft.
It must be... - Very soft. - ...Very tender.
- Very tender and the sauce is intensive.
Cut around.
- Aah.
So you've taken all of these middle bits out.
- Correct.
- Right.
Okay.
Making it smooth - nice.
Woah.
- This is the part that we use for the slow cooked veal cheek.
- Let me tell you; it was this big and it reduced to this.
- Yes.
- Look at this size difference.
So now you put the artichoke in the...
- In the vacuum bag. - ...Vacuum bag.
- And then together with the really tasty vegetable stock and give the flavour to the artichoke.
This step is really important to cook it through because, otherwise, if you have air inside,
then it's not working.
We remove 100% of the air and we have only the stock and the artichokes in the bag.
- Wow.
- Just the stock and the artichokes. - Look at this.
- Oh, this is a boiler.
This is 85 degrees.
- Correct, you can see here.
- Aha.
- Just so you know, I love my job because I can do a lot for different customers.
Great menus and millions of people can taste it on the aircraft.
- [Sam] That plating was so beautiful.
The meat's very tender but to be honest, there's lots and lots of vegetables.
I'm not used to so many vegetables.
It might not be my kind of dish.
Cooking Kung Pao chicken.
Vinegar.
- [Chef] And then basically, we just simmer it.
- Oh, in Cantonese, we would say that this is Lo Tao.
And this is thickening with the starch.
Okay.
- It's moulding to the... - Yeah.
- ...Consistency that we want.
- Kung Pao is (mumbles) advise.
- You can tell that it's fully cooked now and then we're going to start putting the sauce in.
- Cashew nuts at the end.
Yeah, here, Kung Pao chicken coming up.
Ooh.
Oh no!
I'm so sorry!
I'm going to clean it up and then I'm going to eat it like that.
I'm so sorry.
- Yeah, I think that we'll put the rice on top.
- Let's put the rice on top and eat it like this.
- I see that you enjoyed your Kung Pao chicken rather than (mumbles).
- Okay, I think that it was a tight race.
Both were very good but I think that I do have a personal preference.
The Asian dish came out a little bit better for me.
- Better for you.
- As a personal preference, yeah.
Thank you very much.
- It's good to know that you enjoyed your meal, Mr Chui.
- Thank you so much for spoiling me.
Only on Singapore Airlines do you get to choose two main courses instead of one.
- It's my pleasure.
- Thanks so much.