This Is How Your Airline Food Is Really Made

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When thinking of airline food, you may have skeptical thoughts about where it actually comes from and envision just a long, ugly assembly line of preserved foods. You’ll be surprised to know that what you’re eating on your international flight would likely pass catering standards.

An article detailing the process of making airline meals found that when it comes to Gate Gourmet, the food is always prepared as fresh as humanly possible.

Gate Gourmet is the catering company behind the food of many international airlines, especially flying out of Australia. Its regional executive chef, Jeremy Steele, says the food is made out of its Sydney Airport facility. There is an area for cooking the food and another area for prepping it for freezing. The foods are all freshly cooked, flash-frozen and quickly packaged.

A berrylicious experi-mint! 🌱🍓#breakfast #yoghurt #fruit #berries #freshstart #foodart #healthystart #gategourmet #airlinefood

A post shared by Gate Gourmet (@gategourmet) on Feb 2, 2017 at 4:17am PST

Food portions are meticulously measured by weight, cooled to 5°C and then packaged thoughtfully. The packages are frozen and ready for flight.

Considering that you can get a hot meal 35,000 feet in the air in the first place, we really can’t blame airlines for any weird-tasting quality. We also lose about 30 percent of our sense of taste when in the air, so if you have had a poor experience, you can’t be too critical.