Flying tonight
At only 33, David Stockton, development chef at British Airways, is responsible for making sure that 65 million meals a year are served on BA flights worldwide. And that can mean crisis management, such as recatering an entire aircraft at short notice.
It's hard to describe a typical day because, quite frankly, there isn't one. I can be in Beijing one day, Tokyo another - it all depends on where we are introducing new menus. I go to see our suppliers at the point of destination to ensure they know the standards we want, and keep them on their toes.
When I am in the UK, I am based at Waterside, our headquarters near Heathrow. I'm up at around 6.15am. Breakfast is always the same - fibre-and-fruit cereal, live yogurt and juice - apart from when I'm on a plane, when I always have the cooked option.
I get to work about 7.30am. The first job is to deal with the pile of e-mails that have flooded in from all over the world during the night. I often get 100 e-mails a day, some from regular fliers commenting on the food.
We change the menus regularly: weekly in short haul, for which we have three winter and three summer rotations, and every month in long haul, where there are four rotations a year.
Food plays an important part in passenger choice of airline, particularly on long haul and in club and first class. Once passengers have bought their ticket and got their seat, the only thing they want is their food and drink and their entertainment system.
To help maintain standards, we've set up a "culinary council" with chefs such as Michel Roux, Richard Corrigan, Shaun Hill and Brian Turner. They're all brilliant - fantastically passionate about what they do. We meet as a group twice a year and everyone brings along new ideas to try out.
Working with these people is just a dream come true for me. The first time I met Michel Roux, I thought: "Oh my God, this is Michel Roux - I've always admired him and now I'm sitting next to the guy!"
One of our more recent links has been with Mark Edwards, another member of the culinary council and head chef at Nobu restaurant in London. In April we launched the Nobu menu in club and first class on the Toyko route. It was a huge learning curve, because we all had to learn about Japanese food along with Gate Gourmet, the company that produces all our food for flights out of Heathrow.
I was lucky enough to go to Tokyo for the launch. I learnt so much, not just about ingredients, but also about the presentation of food, such as that it's unlucky to place the rice on the left-hand side, or that you should get someone else to pour your sake for you.
If I'm in London I might go over to the kitchens towards lunchtime, just to keep in touch with what's going on and do a tasting over lunch. This could mean tasting a six-course menu for first class on a 26-hour flight to Sydney, or a light snack for a 20-minute flight to Manchester.
The future will be about more flexible dining, a concept that we've been experimenting with recently. It might consist of pre-flight dining on east coast departures from North America to maximise passenger sleep time, or club passengers being able to order meals throughout their flights, giving crew 30 minutes' notice.
In the afternoon, I'm often involved in crew training. It's all very well being able to produce tasty menu options - a challenge in itself, two miles up in the air - but in the final analysis it's down to the crew to serve it properly, particularly in first and club.
Of course, things do sometimes go wrong. Recently, a plane bound for Moscow didn't take off because of technical difficulties. All the passengers had to be off-loaded while the problem was sorted out. By that time, the food had gone past its best-before, so we had to send back for more food, which meant overtime in the kitchens. Fortunately, this kind of hitch doesn't arise often, but when it does I have to stick around until it's sorted.
On a good day, I generally leave around 6.30pm, and I'm usually in bed by 10.30pm, having spent the evening vegging-out in front of the television.
Just a minute…
What would you have for your last supper? A beignet of black pudding with scallops to start, followed by squab pigeon with a red wine reduction and then anything with chocolate in it.
What message would you like to give to Tony Blair? Let's promote GB Plc a bit more, because it's a great place to be.
Which industry figure do you most admire? Michel Roux. He's so consistent and has never wavered in his pursuit of quality. And he never ceases to encourage young people.
Food consumption by BA passengers each year
Chicken: 40.5 tonnes
Caviar: six tonnes
Smoked salmon: 22 tonnes
Champagne: 90,000
British Airways serves 65 million meals a year on flights to 165 different destinations, using 3,000 different menus.
Interview by Jenny Webster
