Last week, I’ve got a chance to visit Aerofood ACS for the First Blogger Visit and Kitchen Tour that they held independently and it was a blast!
To be honest, most of you might have heard about PT. Aerofood Indonesia or commercially-known as Aerofood ACS, a subsidiary of Garuda Indonesia and especially well-known for the in-flight food. For me, they have a great reputation and what I didn’t know is that they are actually so much more than an in-flight food caterer. This meeting taught me a lot and I’m excited to share.
On this occassion, we had these important people that possesed so much passion for their work and they are Afdal Amir – the Vice President Corporate Marketing, Emil Fadilah – Vice President for Industrial Division, and Eko Setiyabudi – the General Manager for Industrial Division. We also got to meet the Executive Sous Chef of Japanese Food, Shuichi Osawa.
After some presentation, the gathering was then kicked off to the most-anticipated activities: kitchen tour, a food tasting lunch experience and ended with Q&A and photo session.
The Big Picture!
When it comes to Aerofood ACS, in-flight catering is the outside image that people have somehow always known about for a long time. They were already in the business 44 years ago (exact date: 23 Des 1974) and through progress, changes and perseverance, Aerofood ACS has come to this point where they don’t only serve in-flight catering, but they also have the industrial and commercial services. These then branch out again to a lot of services and it’s huge.
To date, Aerofood ACS has 9 kitchen units for In-Flight Catering in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Denpasar, Lombok, Balikpapan, Medan dan Pekanbaru that serve catering primarily for Garuda Indonesia, Citilink and the majority of other International Airlines that have a flight route to Indonesia.
Post-crisis in Indonesia in 1998 and the rapid growth of Low Cost Carrier in early 2000, Aerofood ACS made an expansion to the market outside of In-Flight Catering by establishing an Industrial Catering. The Industrial Catering provides catering services to offices, hospital, learning centres and schools and also to oil, gas, and mining companies.
As lifestyle and food trends keeps on changing, Aerofood ACS follows the dynamic demand and provides catering with various menu choices with balance and carefully-thought nutritions and prioritizing food safety as the main aspect of the food industry.
This Industrial Service does provide home-cooked menu and special menu that can be adjusted and customized for the special event that customer needs. To cater this need, apart from the 9 kitchen units across Indonesia, Aerofood ACS has 4 satellite kitchens in Daan Mogot, Cikarang, Cilegon and Jatake.
The Kitchen Tour!
Have you ever wondered why the food on the plane is often a bit bland? If yes, welcome to the club. There is an explanation for that.
For in-flight catering, the kitchen and chefs behind the food have to think about too many things. The food safety is the priority, and seasoning has to be used wisely because you don’t wanna end up eating very spicy food on the plane on your 5-hour trip to Hong Kong because it won’t be nice if you’re having a stomach ache or worse, digestion issue in the airplane. I don’t know about you but nah, I won’t love that part. Thanks, Aerofood for thinking about that for us! 😉
Back to the main point where my excitement rose significantly! The kitchen tour is definitely the most eye-opening part of the gathering, as we were shown directly to the behind the scene processes from receiving the ingredients/produce, carefully tested for food safety at the microbiology lab, through sterile room that all personnel should go through before entering the main area (kitchen). The main kitchen where every in-flight dish is made, has a lot of specific rooms with specific functions. There are fish cut area, pastry and cake kitchen, hot kitchen, cold kitchen to the outpost area where food trays have been stored in the trolleys and sealed for security reason. These long lists of processesare not for public show. They are well-thought from every aspect to ensure in-flight customers receive their food in the best condition without compromising the hygiene and food safety.
Lunch!
This part was also one of the highlights as we got to taste some of their refined dishes from sate lilit, rendang (which by the way, was the very best!), marinated chicken (ayam bumbu kuning), gado gado (traditional indonesian salad), pudding and fruits!
Check out below their in-flight menu below as well.
This was definitely an eye-opening experience as I was pretty clueless (almost ignorant) before attending this event. This opens up to a new whole possibilities for what Aerofood ACS can do and I’m sure they will do it well.
AEROFOOD ACS | INDONESIA
Website: www.aerowisatafood.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/aerofoodacsindo
Facebook: @aerofoodacsindo
Instagram: @aerofoodacsindo
