The number of travelers requesting kosher meals continues to rise with one source here saying that the request for glatt kosher meals has more than doubled in the past five years. The requests are filled by Hasmabia Caterers, under the certification of the Badatzof the Eida Hachareidis.
Several travel agents reached by KosherToday concur that the number of travelers requesting kosher food has risen throughout the world and the airlines and the airline catering industry are apparently responding.
In Canada, Gate Gourmet, a Swiss-headquartered company that serves 14 major airlines at Trudeau, including Air Canada, recently opened a kosher kitchen supervised by MK of Montreal.
Gate Gourmet operates a similar kosher kitchen at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport serving more 15 airlines, including El Al Israel Airlines.
In Montreal, Gate Gourmet is already considering extending its kosher services beyond the airline industry, to perhaps retailers, institutions or even large private events, as it has been doing in Toronto.
In the UK, Hermolis caterers, certified by Kedassia, is said to have significantly expanded its operations in the past five years. Hermolis is the exclusive kosher airline service of British Air, as well as many other airline carriers from China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
According to the Star-K Website, in continental Europe, many local airline caterers are supervised by the local rabbinate or certification agency of a specific country. In Switzerland, Achim Caterers is under the supervision of Rav Padwa, Rav Hamachshir of the Orthodox Israel community of Zurich.
In France, the large airline caterer is Servair which is owned by Air France, operates a kosher kitchen under the supervision of the Paris Beis Din. The Paris Beis Din also supervises El Al’s French commissary.
Other major airlines that use local kosher caterers include Sabena Airlines in Belgium, Lufthansa in Germany, and South Africa Airways.
i just had stogel’s breakfast – fantastic (no omlets)!!!
now i want tp try their main course.
koshe airfood should be such as to encourage others to have it and not to turn those who are not strict away.
Are all meals on United Airlines flights between Israel and US kosher?
Lewis’ australia dinner meals are the best 🙂 !!
Lewis’ or Unger’s… yum!
Here in US, the meals are plain OU, neither pas yisroel, nor cholov yisroel, or bishul yisroel, never mind the shechita, unusable parve or dairy, very sorry state of affairs. On my flight to LA, the substandard “inflight delight” OU only was served.
When was this article written? Sabena has gone bankrupt at least 15 years ago?!?
And the kosher food was beyond horrible. In general, kosher food is pretty bad — maybe because Wilton knows they have a captive audience. What a joy it would be if they felt some responsibility to provide something slightly more than edible that actually tasted good! Or how about some options, like fish or vegetarian kosher?
the info about switzerland is wrong. the caterer is called shalom and the hechsher is seckbach from strasbourg france
I just flew on El Al and the food was so bad.
Alaska Air has a vegetarian meal (or maybe it’s gluten free, I don’t remember) available for purchase that has mostly individual kosher products.
nice to hear the best meals are stogels belgum
I am not that familiar with the situation there, whether or not all the shochtim are Lubavitch. You may want to check into what the rules are with Shor Habor / CHK meat coming from Iowa. I believe that Rabbi Marlow A”H’s rules didn’t require 100% of the shochtim to be Lubavitch. If anyone has knowledge of this, please confirm.
hermolis all the way…best food.hospitals/hotels/planes/trains and anywhere you may be holed up unexpectedly!
Kedasya is THE chassidishe shechita in London, used by many. It is headed by R’ Heishke Raskin who is a lubavitcher chossid!!!
Many lubavitchers use this shechita – although not all the shochtim are lubavitch.
I flew to Belgium and there were 40 kosher meal requests. On our flight This was not pesach time
Best kosher meal I ever had on an airline was British airways.
Why do the USA kosher caterers do such a bad job???
I don’t wanna take away any credit from what us shluchim are doing, but I think the reason why the numbers have gone up so significantly, is because other people (goyim) are beginning to realise that kosher food has less garbage in it, and is therefore much healthier
Itotally agree Hermolis is the best
I agree with your sentiment about Hermolis. Your statement about kedasia meat being Chabad is very misleading. Kedasia is a chassidishe hashgocha, – they have shochtim who are Chabad, but the meat you are eating could easily have been shechted by a non-Lubavitcher
i TOTALLY AGREE hermolis airline food was actually tasty and since in europe the meet is by hashgacha and not brand their meat is kedasya and therefore chabad:)
thats totally awesome i was just in the airport famished and all i ate was kosher chips
all they need to do now is get their act together and raise the standard to something that actually resembles a meal.!!!!!
Just came from hong kong to S. Francisco, and dairy breakfast wasnt cholov Yisroel. Pretty disappointing. “KoshAir OU”
Hermolis, from the U.K. has 5 course kosher dinners, the best i have ever tasted. The others don’t even compare.
shluchim, keep up the great work!