Dubai: Fancy your prospects as a chef? Or make your skills count in pitching F&B concepts to potential clients?

Then, chances are that Emirates Flight Catering has a job opening for you. The Emirates Group entity is on a mission to expand its reach beyond airline clients and take on big-scale catering opportunities as they come.

The division is on a massive hiring spree across all verticals, including food and beverage and dedicated sales and marketing teams. “We have diversified heavily into non-airline related businesses,” said Mohammed Al Falasi, Assistant Vice-President of Emirates Flight Catering.

“We are also recruiting Emirati chefs for our Emirati Kitchen concept since we have requests for Emirati cuisine in-flight and the events we are catering to.”

Making a big splash at events 

The catering side of the Emirates’ business is already a substantial one by all accounts. The Dubai headquartered airline’s 2021-22 annual report shows non-transport revenues - comprising consumer goods, hotel operations, catering, sales at F&B outlets and tour operator services - contributed 6.3 per cent of revenues, and amounting to Dh3.7 billion (compared to the Dh1.9 billion in 2020-21). The increase indicates the depth of the company’s efforts to expand its business beyond air travel, air-side and ticketing and capitalize on the potential of related industries.

EKFC is the official F&B partner of Dubai’s Coca-Cola Arena and is closely aligned with events such as the Dubai Rugby 7s, Dubai Airshow, and Jazzfest. “Now, we want to capture more big-scale sporting, corporate and government events,” said Al Falasi.

“Events are planned and decided at least nine months before, especially with global events. The catering business needs to be constantly active, and we are working six- to nine months before any event.”

“We are actively discussing catering to an entire season of sporting events, including the upcoming Golf tournaments. We also have COP28 happening later this year and look forward to providing our services to this significant event.”

Catering to customised preferences

Al Falasi said customers are increasingly seeking personalised menus, including, of course, vegan and other dietary requirements. “We recently hosted an event where 80 per cent of the guests required plant-based meals. There is also increased demand for local/Arabic cuisine.”

Moreover, consumers also demand locally-sourced produce, which Al Falasi said Emirates Flight Catering can provide through ventures such as the Bustanica (one of the world’s largest vertical farms) in Dubai and focusing on local suppliers where possible.

“From a supplier’s perspective, we support local producers, significantly reducing food waste and the stress on our landfills,” said Al Falasi. “We also supply our organic waste to UAE farms free of cost, which is repurposed. We are also talking with some companies to repurpose food waste into animal feed.”

E-commerce and retail

EKFC has over 15 outlets across Dubai, including homegrown operations such as Grains and Greens, La Patisserie, Deli2Go, and The Galley. Its e-commerce food delivery service – Foodcraft - has also witnessed significant growth post-pandemic.

“We relaunched Foodcraft – an online food delivery platform initiated during the COVID-19 lockdown,” said Al Falasi. It partnered with noon to provide the delivery. Al Falasi confirmed the company will announce more partnerships with other last-mile aggregators and ‘dark store’ providers.

“We are directly engaging with our consumers on product quality, portion size, and other preferences,” Al Falasi added. “We offer a cooked meal that customers can personalise based on their dietary restrictions. All they need to do is pop the meal into an oven, which is ready to eat in five minutes.

“We also provide bakery items, frozen meats, and chilled products through Foodcraft.”

EKFC is yet to provide branded products to retailers. “It is something we will be doing very soon. However, we provide our white-label products to major retail outlets in the UAE. We are also working with retailers to develop unique products.”