Airlines
around the world are trying to reduce their ecological footprint by serving
locally-produced and sustainable food. While the trend appears to be growing,
experts say more needs to be done.
Deutsche Welle, 3 Sep 2014
Consumer
awareness and demand are driving the food industry in industrialized countries
toward sustainability - locally sourced food and waste reduction are among the
top trends for restaurants in 2014, according to a US restaurant association
survey. Demand for regional and organic food continues to increase in Europe,
including in Germany.
Despite
ever more organic bistros sprouting up, it is still not standard practice to
serve sustainable or locally-sourced food on airline flights. But this is
starting to change.
"Increasingly,
customers want to know where their food is from and how it's been
sourced," explains Sinead Ferguson, a menu design manager for British
Airways. "So we've embraced this."
Sustainability
taking off
In the UK,
one percent of all food transport is done by plane, but it accounts for 11
percent of carbon emissions, according to Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs statistics. By using food grown locally that doesn’t have to be
flown to the airport before being served to passengers, airlines can reduce the
amount of greenhouse gases produced.
 |
| Airline meals typically come with plenty of packaging |
Today,
cookies served on British Airways flights come from an organic bakery located
on the Scottish island of Mull. The fish, tea and coffee served are sustainably
sourced, and the airline says its bottled water comes in packaging that is
entirely renewable.
In October
2012, China Airlines began labeling food on flights from Taipei to Frankfurt
with its respective carbon footprint, becoming the world’s first airline to do
so. The carbon footprints are calculated by the Taiwan-based Industrial
Technology Research Institute. Items such as the "Authentic Taiwanese Beef
Noodle Soup" for business class passengers and "Plain Omelette with
Mini Sausage and Hash Brown" meal for economy class range from between
0.43 and 3.52 kilograms (one to 7.76 pounds) of equivalent carbon dioxide
emissions per meal.
Another
airline using sustainable food and beverages is KLM. "We want to set the
standard for sustainable aviation," says Roel Verwiel from KLM.
"Instead of getting the chicken [on our flights] from South America or
Thailand, we've replaced that by locally-sourced chicken."
And Bobbie
Egan from Alaska Airlines says that utensils on the US carrier's flights are
compostable - and the airline's coffee mugs are made from recycled water
bottles.
Coming back
down to earth
But despite
these projects, Simon Heppner - founder of the Sustainable Restaurant
Association - says airlines still have a way to go before being truly sustainable
in the food and drinks they serve.
He sees the
main problem as the tight profit margins in the aviation industry, which make
prioritizing sustainable food products and packaging a low priority. This is
combined with the fact that airlines tend to tackle one issue of sustainability
at a time.
"I
think there have been lots of examples in the past couple of decades of
airlines that have focused on a specific issue within sustainability,"
Heppner told DW. "But no one's looked at it holistically and said 'we want
to push forward on all of these, and all at the same time.'"
 |
| KLM uses uses beef from "free cows" |
Food waste
is another issue, Heppner says. Due to international regulations, uneaten
airline food and the containers they are in must be incinerated, used as fuel
or disposed of in a landfill. This is done to avoid spread of nonnative animal
or plant species that could harm local ecosystems.
"The
reality is that everything you see on board is not able to be recycled,"
says Heppner.
Sharing
sustainability
With the
continued growth of worldwide air travel - airlines carried more than three
billion passengers in 2013, according to the International Air Transport
Association, with the according to the Carbon Neutral Company's roundtrip
flight from Frankfurt to New York emitting more than a ton of carbon dioxide -
British Airways' Ferguson says focus on sustainable food and drinks may
increase in the future.
And,
indeed, some German airlines are beginning to include sustainable food on their
flights. Lufthansa's "Discover Slow Food" campaign, in cooperation
with the sustainable food advocacy group Slow Food, served business class
passengers on European flights local German specialties such as Diepholzer
Moorschnucke, a breed of sheep from Lower Saxony.
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