Planning & Development
Our inflight menus change four times a year. We start preparing each new menu about a year in advance, first deciding on a concept. As well as our own menus, we prepare and cook a huge range including special menus supervised by popular celebrity chefs, and collaborations with various companies.
There are limitations to what will work on an inflight menu, but our specialist experience allows us to propose new menu ideas to the airline. With our special guest chef menus and collaboration menus, we are researching cooking methods to bring restaurant flavors to inflight meals, where the conditions are different.
Menu Development
Creating menus to delight our customers
Twice a year we present our original menus, which always include seasonal flavors in both our Japanese and Western dishes. Dishes are chosen about six months in advance, so when developing our menus we need to identify trends and predict what is going to be popular. From standard menus to creative cuisine, we always strive to produce safe and delicious meals for our customers to enjoy.
For flights departing from Japan, we provide menus supervised by top Japanese chefs, and we are working on recipe development to recreate restaurant flavors. Inflight meals are eaten in a very different environment from a restaurant on the ground. Dishes are served several hours after preparation, so they have to be cooled and then reheated on board. What’s more, the air inside an aircraft is very dry, so a dish will not taste the same as it does on the ground, even if it is prepared according to the same recipe. We test recipes several times in our kitchens and have the supervising chefs check the flavors. We go to great lengths so that you can enjoy delicious meals designed by top chefs.
Inflight Meal Consulting at Overseas Sites
The same JRC quality for inflight meals on overseas departures
For flights departing from the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania, there are differences in the ingredients that can be obtained, the way menus are composed, and customer preferences. After considering menu options taking local conditions into consideration, our chefs go and develop menus on site, as JAL corporate chefs.
They instruct the local chefs to ensure that these menus can be provided properly, striving for quality improvement. Differences in language and culture mean it is not easy to communicate how a dish should taste, or to teach chefs in other countries to prepare Japanese dishes. But a simple "Thank you" from satisfied passengers make their hard work worthwhile.
Inflight service and lounge