The Choreography on the Ground That Puts Meals in the Sky

Millions of people got on planes between Christmas and New Year’s — braving bad weather, armrest hogs and an epic Southwest Airlines meltdown.

Frustration is often a part of flying during the holidays, but if an airline gets things right, the food it serves can take the edge off a long day of travel. If not, a bad meal just compounds the misery.

What does it take for that tray to make its way to you?

Gate Gourmet, a global airline catering company that provides meals to flights out of more than 200 airports, let The New York Times backstage at its operation at Newark Liberty International Airport. In the company’s vast New Jersey building, on any given day hundreds of employees are engaged in a complex choreography to supply meals to about 400 flights.

THE PREP

Inside the kitchen late last month, a team of cooks was busy peeling potatoes, chopping zucchini and simmering an enormous vat of mushrooms. They play a crucial role, but the cooks can’t do anything without the carts, trays and other items cleaned in the dish room and the ingredients stocked in the storeroom.

“Those are the two main focal points of a kitchen,” said Jim Stathakes, a general manager at the Newark building, which spans 290,000 square feet, or about five football fields. “If they’re operating smoothly, the kitchen operates smoothly.”

When a flight served by Gate Gourmet arrives at Newark, the company collects the galley carts that flight attendants push down the aisles, along with the trash and dirty dishes and trays that the carts contain.

In the cavernous dish room, the trash is thrown out, the dishes are washed, and unused, clean items — such as beverage cans, tea bags and creamer — are recovered. The empty galley carts are loaded into an enclosed system resembling a small carwash, where they are cleaned and rinsed in extremely hot water.

In the storeroom nearby, forklifts arrange and rearrange some of the 2,000 pallets loaded up with ingredients for the kitchen. A few hundred pallets with watermelon, strawberries and other fresh items are kept in a produce cooler, while about 500 pallets with meat and other vegetables are kept in a freezer.

Most of the pallets are stacked stories high in the main storeroom and hold a wide array of items, from canned oranges to jars of cornichons to bottles of hot sauce.

To keep food fresh as it is stored, moved, prepared and ultimately delivered, Gate Gourmet uses about 7,000 pounds of ice and about 10,000 pounds of dry ice each day.