Tastefully Yours appoints an aviation nutritionist

                             
In a first for aviation catering, Tastefully Yours, the Atlanta-based inflight catering company, headed by president Paula Kraft, has appointed a full time nutritionist to support and develop new menus for its aviation client base. Heather Hibbin, who holds a PPL herself, has taken up the unique role and starts her new position with immediate effect. She will complement the existing 15 strong catering team based at the Tastefully Yours Atlanta headquarters.

The new position has been created in response to a growing demand from executive passengers who are becoming increasingly aware of the properties of their inflight diet.

Menus will be created that will support crew activity to ensure they can perform at optimum levels during flights so reducing the risk of fatigue and potential risk.

“A dietician working in aviation understands the differences a person’s body encounters at altitude and can therefore provide specifically chosen menus that will support not only the passengers comfort but also support crew’s operating capability,” said Kraft about the significance of the appointment.

“A well fed crew is less likely to become sick so down time for owners and operator is also reduced,” Kraft continues.

Hibbin will be responsible for creating lighter versions of existing menus, providing qualified nutritional information about menu ingredients, creating menus for special dietary requests and devising menus that balance with the body’s circadian rhythms, for passenger and crew alike.

Commenting on its current offering Kraft explains, “We already work with nutritional labelling of inflight meals but recognised that a full time expert would better serve our aims of providing healthy food whilst taking into account the specific considerations of eating at altitude.”

Hibbin joins Tastefully Yours from Cobb & Douglas Public Health Nutrition Services.

“Working with Tastefully Yours presents a whole new set of challenges for me and it is exciting to think that the nutrition knowledge I have can enhance the experience of crew and passengers alike. Together with Paula’s aviation awareness I hope we can generate an even more valuable service for our executive aviation client base,” says Hibbin about her appointment.

The nutritionist appointment is part of a wider overall commitment to the aviation catering Safety Management System that Paula has developed to improve the standards of service within this particular sector.

This has already been presented to the NBAA Flight Attendants Committee at their Chicago Symposium held in June 2012, and whilst at NBAA 2012 she will join the inaugural meeting of the newly formed European Flight Attendant Committee to discuss how the SMS information can be incorporated into their meeting at next year’s EBACE to be held in May in Geneva.