Special Meals: Halal, Kosher & All IATA SPML Codes

Religious and medical diets run on a production line of their own, separated from the main run: separate preparation, separate handling, and a clean-down between runs. It is the same kitchen and the same standard as a full airline catering uplift, worked apart.

Every set is sealed before it leaves the production room and stays sealed until the galley. Each one is labelled to the loading sheet — the passenger, the cabin, the meal code and the contents — so that a crew member reads a tray rather than counts back from a manifest.

HACCP traceability runs from the production room to the purser: temperatures logged, each set recorded against its code, and the handover documented at the aircraft. A declared diet that boards unrecorded is a diet nobody can vouch for at cruise, which is why the paperwork travels with the load.

Sets are boarded with the rest of the uplift, by hi-loader where the aircraft calls for one, so a three-cabin wide-body takes its special meals on the same loading sheet as the tray sets behind and the plated service forward.

Halal airline meals are produced to certification on request, with sourcing and handling kept separate down the whole line, and the certification travelling with the load. MOML is the code to order against; halal inflight catering for a full wide-body uplift is provisioned the same way as a single set, at volume.

Kosher airline meals are supplied as sealed certified sets, KSML, and they board sealed: the seal is the certification, so a set that arrives sealed and boards sealed is a set whose provenance is documented end to end. Kosher inflight catering is ordered by the same route as any other special meal code.

Religious meals are ordered by code like every other diet, and the documentation says what was produced, where it was produced and under which certification. For a state or household movement the same paperwork travels with the load, sealed against the loading sheet.

Two routes, and both reach the same desk. The quote form carries a field for allergies and dietary restrictions, and the request that follows a flight is where a requirement belongs. Or write to orders@aerogourmet.com with the flight and the requirement.

Send it with the order rather than after it. A special meal set runs on a separate line and is sealed before departure, so the requirement has to be with the desk while the production for that wave is still open. The desk confirms the notice it needs station by station, against the production already committed, and tells you what it can board before you commit to a slot.

State four things per passenger: the meal code, the cabin, the allergen or diet in plain words, and how severe it is. Crew meals carry their own dietary requirements and are counted separately from the cabin — flight deck sets are built apart in any case.

A change to a declared diet reaches the kitchen when it is confirmed in writing. Send it to the desk rather than to the crew: a diet added at the aircraft door has nowhere to be produced.

Our kitchens handle all fourteen allergens listed above. A set for a declared diet is produced on a separate line, sealed and labelled, and the line is cleaned down between runs — and even so, the total absence of traces cannot be guaranteed for a set produced in a kitchen that handles those ingredients. We say so plainly rather than imply otherwise.

Where a passenger reacts to traces, tell the desk in writing and say how severe it is. The desk will tell you what it produces, how the set is separated and what the labelling carries, so the decision is taken on the facts before the flight rather than at the galley.

Responsibility for passing a requirement to us accurately — the passenger, the cabin, the code, the allergen, the severity — rests with the operator placing the order. We produce, label and load against the information we are given, and a requirement that reaches us in writing is the requirement the kitchen works to.