Singapore, 11 March 2019 – SATS Ltd. (SATS), Asia’s leading provider of Food Solutions and Gateway Services, today unveiled a new S$25 million kitchen with food technologies that can preserve nutritional qualities and optimize taste while extending shelf life.
Minister for Trade and Industry, Mr Chan Chun Sing, officiated the opening ceremony and toured the facility, tasting the food and meeting many of the people who operate the new equipment. Highlights at the launch included an automated rice line capable of producing about 4,000 rice portions an hour, auto-fryers with the capacity to cook approximately 120 kg of rice or noodles in an hour, a thermoforming packing line, and the first commercially available pasteurization and sterilization technology in Asia.
A team of food technologists, dietitians, and chefs at SATS has worked to develop a variety of great-tasting menus using the new technologies. Popular dishes such as Baked Fragrant Chicken Rice, Ancient Treasures, and Beef Bourguignon are part of the menu line-up.
Recognizing the role SATS could play in enabling people to eat well, it will offer a selection of these meals to aviation customers in the initial phase and extend the distribution of similar meals to non-aviation customers under its Country Foods brand at a later stage.
Alex Hungate, President and Chief Executive Officer of SATS said, “Diets and lifestyles in Asia have changed as a result of rapid urbanization. Families today have less time to prepare meals at home, so they are increasingly turning to ready-to-eat meals. Instead of eating manufactured food and snacks that might include added preservatives, now everyone can eat meals they love, conveniently and safely, with minimal food waste. We serve over 170 million meals across more than 35 locations in Asia, so we have the scale to source and cook authentic, tasty meals efficiently and consistently.”
Scoot will be the first airline to introduce some of these new meals.
Scoot Vice President, Marketing, Jacqueline Loh, said, “We are pleased to partner SATS in this culinary innovation to provide inflight meals with improved taste and quality. At Scoot, we listen to our customers and constantly improve our offerings based on their feedback. We hope our customers will be delighted with the refreshed meals on our Scoot Café menu, which will be available from June 2019 onwards.”
A Sustainable Business Strategy
Producing sustainable nutrition with the latest food technology is an important aspect of SATS’ vision to feed and connect Asia. Conscious that competition for talent, raw materials, energy and water will increase operational costs and place strains on the environment, SATS has adopted a technology-driven, people-led approach to managing growth sustainably. The company will upskill its people and re-design jobs to give them opportunities to stay relevant and reap the benefits of the latest technologies.
An example on display at the launch event, is the use of digital twin technology that helps SATS to simulate different production scenarios and the cooking process for each recipe to optimize the use of resources in its kitchens. By harnessing digital twin, SATS can capture the culinary insights and experience of its chefs digitally and empower them to reproduce the same recipe faithfully for the delight of diners time after time. SATS implemented these new technologies with funding support from the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore.
