Inflight caterer Thinking Food has opened a new facility at London's Biggin Hill Airport. £60,000 was spent renovating the building and converting it into a state-of-the-art kitchen and preparation area. Md Tony Ellison said: “We have been providing executive inflight catering for customers like Gold Air, Gama Aviation and NetJets as well as many of the operators visiting Biggin Hill and Northolt Handling for some time. As these customers’ businesses have grown, so has ours and we needed a new facility. When we heard of available premises at Biggin Hill which we could convert into a specialist inflight catering kitchen, we jumped at the opportunity to become a tenant.”

The company has been providing inflight catering for six years and previously operated from a facility in Reigate. The company said that it was a growth in client base which necessitated a change in facility.

Ellison (a former Citation pilot) said that his background helped him understand what the client wants. This includes how they would like to see their food presented and the limitations in preparing and presenting food onboard an aircraft. He added: “Business aviation operators voted Northolt Handling’s inflight catering service as the best in Europe [EBAN FBO Survey 2002] and that was all down to Thinking Food, which is quite an accolade. We can provide short notice service not just to customers at Biggin Hill, but also to other airports like Northolt, Gatwick and London City. The service operates 24 hours a day and 7 days

a week.

“We chose Biggin Hill for its existing and potential market, especially now Jet Aviation also offers alternative handling services on-site and operators like Gold Air are expanding rapidly. It is also just 15 minutes from the M25 and that means we can get to clients elsewhere pretty quickly.”

The team of chefs is headed by executive chef Bernie Carlin, a well-known figure in the industry who has been providing executive inflight catering for many years. He was previously head chef at Stansted’s Inflite Jet Centre until the FBO closed its kitchen.