Focus on: Royal Smilde's food stories

Royal Smilde has 150 years of culinary heritage. Now it's entering a new era of innovative food concepts and collaborations for onboard. Julie Baxter gets a preview

Afamily company founded in 1863, Royal Smilde first found fame across the Netherlands for its quiches, pies, salads, hummus and spreads. It is a leading food manufacturer that has grown into an international player, and this year sees it make a fresh start in the inflight market.

Fresh start

Royal Smilde's Bebo margarine portions already fly widely around the world but with a new marketing manager, Geert Frank, now leading the airline channel team, a new approach has been born raising the profile of the company's in-house production facilities, broad product range, airline packaging solutions and creative food concepts.

Royal Smilde has teamed up with industry experts AA Bakeries to support its sales ambitions and packaging specialist Ariane van Mancius, of Now New Next, for onboard packaging knowhow and inspiration.

This month it launches a new fresh/ frozen range under the brand name '& stories', created in its own production facilities specifically for inflight service, and designed with clear understanding of the technical constraints of Atlas trolleys.

Flavour focus

The range aims to bring the flavours of a destination onboard in an holistic way. The branding and packaging present flavour concepts from around the world. Frank explains: “Developed around four flavour palates – South American, Mediterranean, Indian and American – we have created a range of products that reflect our expertise but also tell the stories of the destinations they come from. Travel isn’t just about getting somewhere, it is about experiencing unique things along the road and one of those things is the food you taste in the destination. Whether it is in a salad mix or pie, a quiche or spread, we have played with flavours to support the stories of travel and combined this with packaging that explains the region and highlights the provenance of the offering with playful, optimistic story-telling. “Having our own in-house production facilities means we have great flexibility in creating new products and can also offer some interesting price levels for airlines. We believe this will ensure we are increasingly seen as an serious player in the onboard market and look forward to revealing the range at WTCE (1A41) alongside AA Bakeries International.” •

We have played with flavours to support the stories of travel