Emphasising sustainability and adding a personal touch to inflight dining, Singapore Airlines recently gave the world a glimpse of things to come at its 2019 World Gourmet Forum
For an airline that continues to be a great way to fly, Singapore Airlines (SIA) certainly pushes the envelope when it comes to giving its customers the very best in terms of comfort and service on every flight. Over the past few decades, the airline has introduced various concepts that have revolutionised inflight comfort, particularly where inflight dining is concerned.
According to SIA Executive Vice-president for Commercial Mak Swee Hwa, “We are proud to have introduced many industry firsts in inflight dining, including our Book the Cook service, as well as a pre-ordering service for Suites, First Class, and Business Class passengers.”
Over time, these firsts have served as the foundation for even more innovative service offerings for the airline. Indeed, at the 2019 run of its biannual World Gourmet Forum held last 21 March in Singapore, SIA presented a variety of upcoming innovations that will be experienced by passengers across all classes beginning May of this year.
With the theme A Taste of the Future, this year’s Forum centred on sustainability, personalisation, and an even greater emphasis on taste and quality thanks to the continuing efforts of SIA’s International Culinary Panel (ICP) of internationally renowned chefs and wine experts. Sustainability, with particular emphasis on the use of sustainable and locally-sourced ingredients, as well as an overall reduction of food wastage inflight, was initially played up at the first World Gourmet Forum in 2017 where SIA introduced its “From Farm to Plane” concept.
Betty Wong, SIA’s Divisional Vice-president for Inflight Services and Design, says that things have greatly expanded since the concept was first presented. “At the time [we introduced the concept], we wanted to do more in terms of our sources for fish as well looking for fresh ingredients from local farms, not importing [foodstuffs], and reducing our carbon footprint,” she recalls.
Today, SIA continues to promote sustainable sourcing for its ingredients by supporting local farms – not only in Singapore where urban farming has begun to hold sway, but also in the countries it flies to. Earlier this year, the airline formalised its collaboration with Aerofarms, the world’s largest indoor farming facility, in the United States; in doing so, SIA will receive a customised mix of fresh produce that will be served in passengers’ meals on flights from the US to Singapore.
But the airline’s sustainability drive now goes beyond food sourcing and now includes increased measures to reduce food wastage, as well as using more sustainable materials rather than single-use plastics for items like drinking straws, cocktail stirrers, and polybags for packaging children’s toys. Even the paper used for menus, facial tissue, and toilet rolls are made of materials certified under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and one initiative that will be rolled out in the future is the use of environment-safe soy-based ink for printing children’s colouring books and inflight activity kits.
