Airline food innovators have high aspirations: Travel Weekly

LONG BEACH, Calif. — It’s Wednesday afternoon, and a few dozen people have gathered to watch Turkish Airlines chef Demir Duzel do a cooking demonstration of manti, a classic Turkish dish comprising a dumpling stuffed with spice ground meat and served with yogurt.

As Duzel carefully preps the dumplings, Turkish Airlines catering contracts manager Esra Karayaka addresses the crowd. Turkish Airlines, she says, views connecting the world through food to be one of its missions. 

Serving a traditional Turkish dish like manti in-flight also connects the present with the past. 

“Dining is not only about nourishment, it is about memory,” Karayaka says.

That high-minded approach, of course, doesn’t apply to airline food writ large. The frozen dishes often found in economy cabins can’t compare to freshly made manti or the many other gourmet offerings that can be found in the business-class cabins of Turkish Airlines and other carriers around the globe. 

But on this day, airline food and beverage vendors of all sorts, established and aspiring, came to the International Flight Services Association (IFSA) conference to display their wares in hopes of lining up new airline customers, like Turkish, and increasing their shares in the airline catering industry, which IFSA said reached an estimated value of $18.8 billion in 2024. And it is growing fast, to $19.7 billion this year with an annual growth rate of 5.5% to 6% through the end of the decade, outpacing the overall growth rate in the airline industry. 

More than 100 food and beverage companies attended the three-day IFSA conference, their wares spread in mouthwatering fashion across the floor of the Long Beach Convention Center. Cheeses, fine wines and fresh pastries. Packaged chips of more varieties than one can imagine. Packaged nuts and chocolates. Soft drinks and juices. They were all there. 

One vendor specialized in kosher meals. Several were cooking gourmet dishes in their booths. One focused on the sous vide method — meat or fish vacuum-sealed in a plastic bag and cooked gently in a water bath.

At the Mainline Aviation booth on the show’s final day, head chef Marshall Rogers was treating potential clients to an artistically plated selection of high-end appetizers. Among the four items was a tuna tartare adorned with smoked caviar, lemon and shallot and served within an open-topped crispy wonton. Another item, a play on crab rangoon, combined blue crab, soft French cheese and a citrus-flavored jelly called yuzu gel in a small pasta shell called a sacchettoni. 

Atlanta-based Mainline Aviation produces more than 20 million meals annually for Delta, United, American, Virgin Atlantic and others, said CEO Steve Lenderman. The majority of those meals are economy, millions of them prepared fresh every day for international flights on Delta and other carriers from Atlanta. But Mainline Aviation is still a newer entity, launched in 2021, and it was seeking out new customers at the IFSA show. 

Lenderman said Mainline wants to help change the substandard reputation U.S. airlines have for food. More fresh food offerings in economy and upscale business-class items like the ones Rogers was cooking up are part of that equation. 

He said that Delta, for one, shares that goal and has begun setting its sights on global carriers with the most renowned culinary offerings. 

“I’ve got 35 years in the industry, and it’s something interesting to see them pivot from, ‘We want to be the best domestic airline’ to ‘We have aspirations of being able to compete on the customer experience with a Middle Eastern airline,'” Lenderman said. 

Elsewhere on the convention floor, the food preparation was less elaborate, but aspirations were still high.

In the Deli Lites booth, co-founder Jackie Reid and business development manager for travel Joe Harvey were enticing potential visitors with samplings of the fresh brownies they offer to airlines.

Along with baked goods, Deli Lites focuses on sandwiches, wraps and burritos, all made with fresh and healthy ingredients. Items such as spinach, beets, fermented cabbage and pickled onions are Deli Lite favorites. They help the body, gut and brain and can even counteract jet lag, Reid asserted.

The Ireland-based company has been in business for 25 years but only began marketing to airlines six years ago. Aer Lingus is a primary customer. Another is JetBlue, which offers the company’s falafel snack and salted caramel brownie on flights from Great Britain and Ireland, Reid said. 

“We are a very innovative company and just looking to be a disruptor in the market for the good,” Reid said. “The airlines have been playing it safe for so long. They are offering food that isn’t that overly healthy for you. Not everybody wants that type of product.”

Mainline, Deli Lites and other innovators could be on the right track if IFSA’s forecast for growth in the airline catering business proves correct. 

“Taste has become a true differentiator in the skies, and the numbers prove it,” IFSA CEO Joe Leader said.