ANA／Airlines' Initiatives for the SDGs|ANA

September 27, 2021

From October 1, 2021, we will begin offering four types of meals on ANA international flights in collaboration with "THE CONNOISSEURS"*1 members: Diabetic Meal (DBML), Low Fat Meals (LFML), Low Calorie Meals (LCML), and Low Salt Meals (LSML).

* 1

It is a team made up of famous chefs from Japan and abroad, professionals in the field of alcoholic beverages, as well as ANA chefs who are among the best in the world airlines.

All Customers Can Enjoy In-flight Meals

In order to accommodate the tastes and eating habits of a wide range of customers, ANA offers special in-flight meal menus that can be reserved prior to boarding.
In addition to health-conscious meals, we have put a lot of effort into offering more than 20 different menus, including meals for children and infants, and meals that take into consideration religious commitments, so that customers can enjoy in-flight meals that meet their individual needs.

First Challenge - Introducing Collaborative Menu for Special In-flight Meals

As part of our efforts to universalize food, we will start offering menus in collaboration with members of "THE CONNOISSEURS" for some of our health-conscious, body-friendly meals from October 1, 2021.
Mr. Hideki Takayama (Culinary Director of "The Landis Taipei Paris 1930 de Hideki Takayama"), a renowned French chef who has twice led the Japanese team to victory at the Bocuse d'Or Asia-Pacific, known as the "Olympic Games of Cuisine", will be working with ANA chefs on the menus. Mr. Takayama has been actively involved in health food and nursing care food for a long time, and has worked hard to create menus that meet the tastes of a wide range of customers.
In addition, ANA has been developing menus by carefully selecting the food and ingredients, and this time, the Japan Association for Diabetes Education and Care*2 has participated in the menu supervision to create meals that can be enjoyed with even greater peace of mind.
For more details on the menus, please click THE CONNOISSEURS MEMBER PRESENTS ANA's Healthy & Veggie Delights.

* 2

For more details about the Japan Association for Diabetes Education and Care (https://www.nittokyo.or.jp/(Japanese page)Opens in a new window.In the case of an external site,it may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.). The menu supervised is a low-carbohydrate meal (DBML).

Chef Takayama's Thoughts on This Special In-flight Meal Menu

"This collaboration project was made possible by our continued desire to bring the same joy of dining in a restaurant to the airplane. I have been involved in nutrition education and dysphagia diet for some time outside of the restaurant business. This is because I want to enrich people's minds through food. The main point of this in-flight menu was to create a "universal meal" that everyone can enjoy. I hope that you will enjoy the delicious meals that we prepare with the ANA team, where the ingredients are carefully selected and prepared, and the calories and components are calculated,” Chef Takayama says.

Interview with the person in charge

We interviewed ANA Catering Service(ANAC)'s Executive Chef Makoto Shimizu who was involved in the development of the collaboration menus, as well as Koji Otake who was in charge of Western food development, Pastry Chef Noriaki Aida, and Mr. Sasaki and Ms. Ryujin from ANA Products and Servises Planning Department who were in charge of the collaboration planning.

Mr. Shimizu Makoto, Executive Chef, ANA CATERING SERVICE CO.,LTD.

Mr. Sasaki (Right) and Ms. Ryujin (Left) from Products & Services Planning Department ANA

Please tell us about the special in-flight meals.

ANA: We would like to expand the range of choices for "All Customers" in the in-flight meals, so we aim to create "a menu that everyone will want to order," where customers can choose according to their individual tastes and preferences, rather than "a menu ordered due to various reasons such as dietary restrictions".
In June 2021, some of the religious meals (Muslim meals (MOML) and Hindu meals (HNML)) on flights departing from Japan have also been renewed and improved to be more delicious and authentic with ANAC chef's special recipes.
This time, we are renewing our menu of health-related meals and introducing a collaborative menus, and we will continue to provide a menus that can be chosen by a wide range of customers based on the concept of "universalization of food".

Why did you decide to do this collaboration?

ANA: This time, we focused on healthy menus based on the recent rise in health consciousness and feedback from customers. Chef Takayama, who we asked to collaborate with, is a famous French chef with a brilliant career, but at the same time, he has been actively involved in the development of healthy food and nursing care food, and has a background in creating menus that accommodate the tastes of a wide range of customers, and he shares our aspirations.

What difficulties did you face in deciding the menus?

ANAC: Chef Takayama understood the strictness of the special meal regulations (regulations on ingredients and values) in the special environment of in-flight meals, and he designed a menus that pursued discovery and taste, but it was very difficult to reproduce the menus to meet the special meal regulations.
We are very happy that Chef Takayama and the Japan Association for Diabetes Education and Care were satisfied with the quality of the menus. This is the result of our efforts as a "one team" in cooperation with related departments in our company, such as ingredient adjustment and food ingredient management. We hope that our customers will be pleased with the new menus.

What are the highlights of the menus?

ANAC: Within the regulations of the ingredients used, we have tried to make the meals more delicious. For example, in the LSML, the overall texture of the food is made to be chewed well so that the flavor can be extracted and tasted. For the dessert, to reduce the sugar content, we created a dessert-like flavor with tea and vanilla. The jelly is made up of two layers of jellies of different hardness, so you can enjoy the texture as well.

What kind of experience do you want customers to have with the renewed menu?

ANAC: We have prepared meals that can be savored delicately and deeply, even in the extraordinary space of an airplane. We hope you will enjoy it.
ANA: We aim to provide safe, delicious meals that satisfy the needs of customers with different tastes and eating habits. We will continue to promote the "universalization of food" further in the future and hope that all of our customers will consider it as an option and enjoy it.

ANA will continue to promote the universalization of food so that customers can enjoy meals on board that meet their individual food preferences and daily eating habits, and expand the range of meal choices for all customers.