Walking into a factory on the outskirts of Heathrow isn’t exactly the opening scene of a festive Hallmark tale.
Yet there I was, hairnet perched ever so stylishly on my head, surrounded by industrial ovens, trolleys of bread, pots of gravy big enough to swim in and the alluring aroma of roasting turkey.
This is Do & Co, the Austrian catering company that prepares every single British Airways meal in Terminal 5, from Club World sandwiches to the first-class Christmas dinners I was about to plate myself.
I’d never been inside a commercial kitchen before, and as I was told upon arrival, this is like no other commercial kitchen out there.
Christmas for BA is, as expected, a big operation. It’s the largest commercial kitchen in Europe, and between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day alone, almost 220,000 passengers will be flying to over 70 countries, with more than 1,000 departures taking off from London.
Each one of them will expect something resembling a Christmas dinner whilst they’re racing Santa Claus at 35,000ft.
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Between 28 November and 30 December, the team is on track to produce over 400,000 turkey dinners, nearly 50,000 vegetarian Christmas meals, more than 360,000 desserts, and a staggering 10,000 litres of gravy using the off-cuts of the veggies as a stock base (a cracking step for a no-waste pipeline).
To put it another way, that’s enough turkey to fill Wembley Stadium three times over.
Let’s scale that up again. Out of London alone, Do & Co prepares 42,000kg of turkey, 10,000kg of Brussels sprouts, and roughly 18,000kg of potatoes.
There are also more than 100,000 pigs in blankets, each lovingly wrapped in the kitchen.
Walking through Do & Co’s vast facility is like stepping into another world.
Conveyor belts hum, chefs in pristine whites orchestrate a complex dance of chopping, roasting, and plating across stations divided up by global region.
Fresh fish is gutted on site, and meat butchered — a chef told me they’re trying to get to the stage of being able to receive the whole cow carcass.
The biggest shocker was that they have a live lobster tank, all in the name of prime freshness.
James Manfield, Customer Experience and Product Director at DO & CO UK, has strong opinions about the whole show.
‘Food is the best form of entertainment you can have on board. You step off at the other end, and you remember the food.’
Something I agree with; maybe not with the idea that it’s the best form of entertainment – I’ll give that crown to my impeccable selection of podcasts – but food makes a massive difference when many of the top airlines, such as BA, have similar benefits.
From Club World to First levels, you can expect chairs that lie flat into a bed, a good selection of movies and wonderful service from the crew. But the key differentiator is what you get on your plate.
Every meal must not only taste great, it also has to withstand chilling, transportation and reheating, as well as tantalising one’s taste buds regardless of the biological changes that happen when you’re on a flight.
Fun fact: food is more bland in the air, due to the cabin pressure and lower flight humidity, which affect our sense of taste.
It’s a partnership of culinary artistry and military-esque logistics.
The teams work 24/7, 365 days a year to design, create and distribute menus that celebrate British flavours and ingredients, the airline’s so-called ‘British Originals.’
Everything from route duration to passenger demographics influences what ends up on the tray. As Mark Brega, Executive Chef at British Airways, says, it’s all about having a ‘restaurant mindset.’ Something a lot of commercial kitchens are missing.
And look, I’ve always been an advocate for plane food. I’ll admit my mother is British Airways Cabin Crew, so I probably have a bit of a bias here, but no one does it quite like BA.
It’s British comfort with high-end class, and from spending the day at Do & Co, I now know that, quite literally, no one is doing it like these guys. It’s all fresh, it runs like a restaurant, and it’s bloody good stuff.
I have been lucky enough to experience the delights of first-class travel (as I said, my mum works for BA), but it wasn’t until I attempted to race Mark Brega to plate up a first-class dessert that I realised the precision it takes to do so, let alone when you’re in the galley with turbulence three hours into a jaunt to San Diego.
After my tour of the kitchens came the best part: tasting the finished product.
The first-class festive menu is everything you’d hope for: tender turkey, perfectly seasoned stuffing, buttery mashed potatoes, some of the best Brussels sprouts I’ve ever tasted, and, of course, pigs in blankets.
The trick, as Terry Keates, one of Do & Co’s British Specialist Chef’s explained, is focusing on the ‘umami’ flavours, such as miso paste, mushrooms and top quality meats, all to make your sedated taste buds tingle mid-flight.
Walking back out of the factory, I couldn’t help but marvel at the scale and precision of it all.
For thousands of passengers, Christmas begins not at home, but at a gate at Heathrow, with a carefully curated festive meal waiting for you when you take off.
Behind every turkey and every sprout, there’s a complex choreography of planning and dedication, something very few people have ever seen.
And yet, at the moment the tray lands in front of someone sipping champagne at 35,000ft, it all comes together seamlessly.
Airline food may not always get the love it deserves, but on BA this Christmas, it’s clear: the journey from factory floor to festive flight is nothing short of extraordinary.
