Part II - The Gate Gourmet Tour
So most of us have attempted to eat airplane food, or try and consume it... but what goes on in the background? Do workers make up straws and cherry tomatoes as cannonballs (bonus points for the reference)? What is in that deluxe mix or don't we really want to know? Could Lucky9876coins pry himself from the hot nuts? How do you clean up a plane? What happens to broken carts? What airline demands what drinks?
These and more were answered with a tour of the Gate Gourmet factory. If you’ve done any flying it’s intresting and not a really automated process – but very labor intestive, with many workflows to the work.
We arrived and initally had our UA International C Class meal (which was appreciated at this point) and was a choice of chicken or fish (I went for the fish - not overcooked - just nicely done)
FlyerTalkers noshing
Pretty soon it was time to don hairnets, and wander around.
The warm supplies area is where each airline that GG serves has it own pen (for example there was a UA, DL, NW and BA pen that I could see), so for example in the BA pen there was Sunpride juices and 150ml cans of coke, whist the UA pen had international supplies for the TPAC routes
The Pen.
BA Supplies
Your map to where to find things in UA land
After this walk, it was downstairs to the food preperation area, where all washed hands and cleaned before proceeding further.
Food layouts
We were guided around the areas, from cold prep, to frozen storage, past the cooking areas, the snack boxes and a few other wonders, with explainations and thoughts.
Fruit platters
I don't care what anyone says - that's a lot of coke!
Flyertalkers and Drinks - says it all really
Projectiles! I mean rolls
C Class patters.
The work schedule.
There were explanations about the site, how it linked in with SFO, the security ideas, and how staff were looked after.
Overall a very interesting day - certainly has opened my eyes to how things are done and the sheer work that goes into it.
Next: My hotel and The first night...
See:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=872076 for more and
http://picasaweb.google.com/kevincm/SFOGateGourmetTour# for the full set
