The airline catering industry is not for the faint of heart. It is a fast-paced, dynamic and always on the clock business.Digitalisation has helped the industry to work smarter and be more efficient—especially the introduction of a cloud-based product development platform.
The Challengeirline catering is a hugely diverse and dynamic industry with a mixture of in-house andoutsource solutions.Specialist providers will be servicing a variety of airline brands with a huge array of ad-hoc catering needs, ranging from full-scale charter flights with multiple set-menus across a variety of traveller classes to last-minute meals for anincreased passenger count and meals for passengers with specific dietary requirements.Production, by default, is dynamic but also has to be safe and profitable. The entire flow of operations - from the ordering and receiving of raw ingredients to prepping, cooking, packaging and delivering - has to be flawlessly executed and carefully monitored.
From the ordering and receiving of raw ingredients to prepping, cooking, packaging and delivering, every step has to be executed flawlessly and be monitored carefully.
Enter: Product Development Platform
Typically ERP systems are used for purchase-to-pay, warehouse management, production control andlogistics. At the point of production, it is critical that only meals that have been completely validated exist in the ERP environment.Product development, however, can be complicated and the validation process of new recipes elongated.Every department, culinary development, procurement, health and safety, operations and sales must work together to deliver the desired menu for each airline client.The product development process can often begin as much as 6 months in advance.Since airline caterers are global organisations, the communication lines tend to cross every possible timezone.Moreover, handovers in the development and procurement process are often manual and involve the transfer of emails, Excel sheets and PDF between departments.That is why airline catering companies are looking to deploy dynamic cloud-based F&B Product Development platforms with instant updates throughout the system.
It speeds up the creative process, communication, and validation substantially.
How It Works:
The F&B Product Development platform can serve as a single source of truth for product development. It speeds up communication between teams, the development of new menus and their validation substantially.
- Product Descriptions
- Tech Sheets
- HQ Food Photos
- Methodologies
- Food Allergens
- Nutritional Values
- Nutriscores
- Food Costs
The product development platform is capable of capturing every aspect of the development process:Assembling ingredients,Creating sub-recipes and recipes,Assessing food cost profiles,Tracking allergen content,Performing nutritional calculations,Providing technical specification
 sheets, andStep by step methodologies.Immediate improvements API endpoints enable the groups ERP system to POST and GET ingredient and recipe data from the development platform.The product database is accessible to key team members from each department across the group. 

This set up ensures that team members are always using up to date data.Because it is a cloud-based system, the teams are collaborating almost real-time, dramatically shortening the development process and time-to-market.
Immediate improvements
API endpoints enable the groups ERP system to POST and GET ingredient and recipe data from the development platform.The product database is accessible to key team members from each department across the group. 

This set up ensures that team members are always using up to date data.Because it is a cloud-based system, the teams are collaborating almost real-time, dramatically shortening the development process and time-to-market.Development chefs can now collaborate groupwide and real-time on new products; It prevents unvalidated recipes from accidentally going into production; Email and paper-based communication are no longer slowing down production.
Picture This...
Instead of UK and US development chefs working individually on a chicken masala recipe, they can now work on it together,or fall back on the data that is already available in the system. 

The inventory and procurement managers can closely monitor the progress and pitch in when needed.Everybody who needs to sign off on a specific part of the technical sheet, the allergen labels, nutritional content, ingredient list, food cost or any other aspect of product development can navigate to the product development environment and check on progress.When the new product is ready and validated, it becomes available to the other parts of the production process via API-endpoints. If someone needs to sign off on a specific part of the tech sheet, they can look it up directly in the system, avoiding bottlenecks.
The Power of Food Photography
Nothing can beat a good picture. Food photography is an often underestimated, but powerful aspectof product development.Specifically for training the teams of the worldwide production units. After all, consistency is key.Strong food photography makes it easier for everyone to understand the new methodologies.And makes the group-wide roll-out of new products super-efficient. Visual support ensures consistency of quality and presentation across all sites. Airline caterers are enhancing their training modules with powerful photography. The high quality product photos also help to shorten the time-to-market.
9 Benefits of a Product Development Platform for Airline Caterers
Moving to an environment specifically designed for product development has had immediate effects on the day-to-day operations of airline caterers.
- Shorter time-to-market
- No more errors due to manual entries
- Quick implementation of last-minute decisions
- No need for clunky emails with extended CC’s and BCC’s
- Improved response time on critical questions
- Secure handoffs between departments
- Faster validation of new recipes
- No more spreadsheets, PDF’s, Powerpoints or Google sheets
- Groupwide consistency in product and quality
Teams collaborate groupwide, improving product quality and consistency.
Digitalise Airline Catering F&B management and streamline the product development process. Collaborate across time-zones.
