MISSING THOSE IN-FLIGHT SNACKS? THE EXCESS INVENTORY IS BEING REPURPOSED
Frequently purchased as a graduation gift, Dr. Seuss’s “Oh the Places You’ll Go!” is taunting us, its singsong meter and rhyme piling on. It is a book about itchy feet and the wide-open road. The coronavirus pandemic has made us pine for travel — the booking, the downloading of the boarding pass, even the in-f light snacks. We even miss the snacks.
Imperfect Foods, an online surplus-stock grocery delivery company aimed at eliminating food waste, can help with that. This week it is offering Jetblue Airline cheese and snack trays, $2.99 for three ounces of mixed cheeses, dried cherries and crackers.
Its imperfection: It is excess inventory. It was never exactly memorable cheese or noteworthy crackers. It was there, like the trio of Sudoku games in the in-flight magazine: a diversion while flying at 30,000 feet.
Imperfect Foods Chief Executive Philip Behn says the cheese and snack trays were an early casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Almost two months ago, before it became a nationwide pandemic, this catering and airplane meal supplier said they saw a decline in economy and businessclass seats,” he says. “This was one of our first COVID-19 food waste recovery opportunities. We could only take a fraction of what they had.”
Behn says they’ve sold 40,000 cheese and snack trays. He says there are hundreds of clients eager to find buyers for millions of pounds of food originally slated for restaurant, hotel or travel and leisure businesses. But frequently these foods are not desirable or packaged for retail consumers.
“We call that ‘breaking bulk,’” Behn says. “We have stepped up with co-packers to try to repackage some of those products — it’s hard work and it’s slow given the importance of food safety.”
Yet there are bright spots. Imperfect Foods is a budget-conscious company, so high-end products like pineapples are usually too expensive to offer their customers. Where do people eat pineapples? Hotels. And with hotels stalled, Imperfect Foods has been able to buy and offer them for a fair price. They have redistributed popcorn kernels previously destined for movie theaters and broccoli florets usually reserved for restaurants.
Since the beginning of March, Imperfect Foods has doubled the volume of food it was previously buying, the Jetblue snacks among many.
Julianna Bryan, communications specialist for Jetblue, says the airline has had to dramatically reduce its in-flight food and beverage service to minimize contact between customers and crew members.
“We have temporarily suspended the sales of buy-onboard products including our Eatup Snack Boxes, Eatup Café fresh food items, beer, wine and liquor,” she says.
Jetblue has donated leftover inventory of snacks to Feeding America and other food banks, as well as hospitals. Bryan says that Jetblue has worked with its business partners to sell unused inventory, such as the cheese trays, at a heavily discounted price with the goal of moving it quickly and minimizing waste.
Jetblue is not the only airline to have to find new outlets for its in-flight overflow. Delta has had to unload its Biscoff cookies — and it serves 80 million to 85 million of these spiced shortbread favorites each year. Many of the cookies have been donated by Delta to front-line workers and hospitals along with coffee and other in-flight beverages.
Also, Southwest has donated more than $400,000 in snacks and other in-flight items to nonprofit organizations and nearly 13 tractor-trailers full of groceries to 15 food banks that are a part of the Feeding America network.
Reiley writes for The Washington Post.