Catering to the Skies: Inside Emirates’ Culinary Empire

If you ever fly on Emirates or virtually any other airline out of Dubai International Airport, odds are high that the delicious meal you are offered has been prepared by Emirates Flight Catering, commonly known as EKFC. For those who don’t know, this is one of the largest in-flight catering services around the world, and much more than just a catering company-it’s an unseen giant serving millions of passengers every year with premium culinary experiences. From providing exquisite fine dining to events at amazing venues, Emirates Flight Catering is the new standard in fine in-flight cuisine.

Emirates Flight Catering was formed in 2003 from its parent company, Emirates Abela Catering Company, splitting into its current entity. Since its parent company first began, envisioning to serve Emirates Airline flights, Emirates Flight Catering expanded into a world operation that currently serves more than 120 international airlines arriving and departing Dubai International Airport. Emirates Flight Catering Centre is a highly advanced facility that can produce more than 225,000 meals every day. It employs more than 11,000 people, and alone in 2017, it provided 55 million meals, producing an average of 180,000 meals for its passengers every day.

Advanced food production facilities are the keys of mass scale offered at EKFC. For its own part, the group’s flagship facility is the Emirates Flight Catering Centre at Dubai International Airport, representing one of the most sophisticated operations of its kind globally. The facility produces over 115,000 meals a day, and operates exclusively for Emirates Airline. Besides this one, it has a second facility that caters to more than 120 other international airlines. In pursuit of its aggressive expansion strategy, in 2005, EKFC established Food Point, a 10,000-square-meter production facility at Dubai Investment Park. The increase in production capacity will provide 30 million extra meals per year and is one of the companies’ key assets in terms of global food production capabilities. International Food Systems Ltd designed the facility to ensure Emirates Flight Catering could meet the culinary requirements of the airlines within and outside the region.

But catering isn’t the only business domain where Emirates Flight Catering stands tall. Besides its food factories, EKFC runs Linencraft, a vast laundry complex located in Dubai Investment Park. Since 2007 when it was upgraded, Linencraft can clean or dry clean up to 210 tons every day. This enables the airlines run by Emirates to service passengers in the best possible manner under bright, fresh-looking linens. Further securing its status as a pioneer in innovative food, Emirates Flight Catering was in the news in February 2024 for fully acquiring Emirates Bustanica, previously called Emirates Crop One. Bustanica is touted to be the world’s largest indoor vertical farm, and the sustainable farming process gives EKFC the opportunity to grow fresh ingredients 365 days a year for its meals on board. This takeover shows the commitment of EKFC towards sustainable food supply, that the company makes use of the most modern technology toward excellence in operations.

Emirates Flight Catering has brought not just excellence in operations but also offered a forward-looking sustainability approach. In this acquisition, Bustanica takes into account the minimizing of environmental impact on the overall food production process. This indoor vertical farm grows fresh produce utilizing 95% less water as compared to traditional farming methods and delivers EKFC a range of high-quality ingredients to ensure nutritious and flavoursome meals for its passengers. EKFC has significantly invested in energy-efficient infrastructure. Emirates Flight Catering thus acts towards creating a greener future both for aviation and the food industry through the usage of advanced technologies that are used to optimize food production and efficient waste management.

Another reason behind the success of EKFC is that it adheres to be watchful and attentive to the diverse requirements for food by passengers. Here, the choices for meals range from the traditional Emirati to vegetarian and gluten-free, and all the passengers are assured of enjoying a quality meal suited to their choice. Again, it is robust on the issues of food safety and quality control, and hence, it takes maximum care towards that aspect to ensure quality meals for all the passengers.