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Food so good, it’s flying
oe Simon left an International career in the hotel industry, after a holiday in Grenada prompted him to return to his home country and start his first company "Liftoff Restaurant" situated at the Maurice Bishop International Airport. In 1993 he teamed up with Goddard Catering of Barbados and started his second business Inflight Catering Goddard Catering Group (Grenada) Ltd . Simon remembers, “They were not interested in setting up a facility in Grenada, they were saying - we will send you the meals and you put them on the aircraft, and my reply was - I want a kitchen! ...and I managed to win that argument.” Simon is the Managing Director of this endeavour and 50% Shareholder. Inflight is profitable, and has a big impact on the the local economy. With two sides to the operation, one is the international side, the airlines consumption, the other, the local side, Simon reckons he spends in a low month $50,000EC for stock, and a busy month like December or August (with Carnival) it's over $100,000.00EC. “We buy large amounts from farmers and fishermen, groceries from the supermarkets, utilize local laundry services and even the airport benefits from us with a percentage of our sales.” The task of supplying Inflight meals to Virgin, American and Delta Airlines as well as numerous private jets, is not a small one – A UK bound jumbo jet that departs full requires 900 meals, in two servings - dinner, breakfast, plus snacks. Not a task for your average kitchen. The airlines set their menus by inviting Inflights chefs to a particular location. Here the food is cooked, presented and evaluated inline with the airlines mandate. Once approved, it’s back to the kitchen in Grenada to begin purchasing for the new menu. As one would expect, all food cooked at
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inflight is according to international hyg iene specifications. “We must practice guidelines and methods set by HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points) which is a systematic preventive approach to food safety that identifies physical, allergenic, chemical, and biological hazards in production processes that can cause the finished meal www.businessgrenada.com
to be unsafe, measurements are then put in place to reduce these risks to a safe level. Simon boasts “Our Kitchens are probably one of the highest practicing HACCP entities on the island” - the airlines can inspect you unannounced so the standard has to be kept very high at all times.” Simon explains that Airline food is the
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