In-flight meals with a flair of 'Kiwiana'
Zoe Lloyd
Wellington High School
Year 11 Food and Nutrition Technology
Six months – 2006
Teacher: Marietjie van Schalkwyk
Client: Airline catering company
Students were asked to develop to a meal or a dish that referred to New Zealand culture in some way, be it through shape, form or choice of ingredients, suitable for serving aboard long-haul flights coming into New Zealand.
To better appreciate the challenges and constraints involved in developing airline meals, the class paid a visit to a local airline catering company. The company's production manager agreed to act as the prime stakeholder in the project. Contact with the client was maintained through e-mail. The class found the internet a valuable source of information when researching airline meals.
After exploring different concepts and "indigenous" flavours Zoe Lloyd, based her meal on the iconic Fish and Chips idea, using Terakihi and Kumara as ingredients. On a previous occasion, students from Wellington High School had developed a pancake based on the idea of the Māori kete; for this meal Zoe decided to wrap her meal in a 'kete' pancake. To round off the meal, it is served with oven baked mushrooms and home-made tomato sauce.
Learning about the production and development of airline meals was very interesting because of the stages and processes that went into developing the concept, Zoe says.
She says she was pleased with her final concept because it looks good and tastes good and is unique.
"I was excited when we presented our concepts to our stakeholder and he was impressed with my meal. The success of this project has made me want to continue taking Food Technology next year!"
Teacher Marietjie van Schalkwyk says working with a real client challenged the Year 11 class to focus on the needs of a wide group of people. The airline catering company was a great stakeholder Marietjie says, because they went out of their way to show their appreciation of the students' work.
"They assured the class that they would like to use some of the concepts in their menu planning for 2007."
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