Tianjin Airlines：Promoting low-carbon and health in-flight food

Company profile
 
Tianjin Airlines Company Limited (hereinafter referred to as Tianjin Airlines) was founded in June 8, 2009. As an aviation enterprise co-established by Tianjin government and HNA Group, Tianjin Airlines is located in Tianjin City, the economic center of Bohai Rim area.Holding the brand image of "all ways with you", Tianjin Airlines aim to provide convenient service and product, create a wonderful travelling experience with passengers.
 
Currently, Tianjin Airlines owns a young and deluxe fleet with more than 90 aircrafts, mainly including A320, A330 and E190. Through the development in recent years, Tianjin Airlines has built up an airline network with Tianjin, Xi'an, Hohhot, Urumqi and so on as major hubs, opened more than 250 domestic and international routes, including more than 30 international routes. The airline network is spread all over China, connecting Japan, Korea, Russia, Thailand and other countries and regions and including direct flights to UK and New Zealand. With flights to over 100 cities in the world, the annual passenger volume in 2016 has reached over 12 million person-times.
 
Challenges
 
At present, the global annual emissions of greenhouse gas are 50 billion tons. Countries around the world need to work together to achieve the global targets that keep global temperatures rise within 2℃. As the global population continues to increase and the level of income has increased substantially, meat consumption has raised six times since 1978; it is expected that China's per capita consumption of meat will reach 90 kilograms by 2030. According to the two research reports on improving eating habits and mitigation of climate change, published by the Chatham Institute and Johns Hopkins University at the end of 2015, it is difficult to achieve a temperature control at 2℃ without changing the diet.
 
Cabin is a special travel environment. As the high density of the space causes the air too dry and due to time differences and other reasons, the smell and taste of passengers become so slow that they lose appetite; meanwhile, as long-distance travel weak gastrointestinal activity, passengers become more sensitive to food, so more environmentalists and health requesters have demanded for vegetarianism in recent years. On the other hand, the traditional in-flight food is too monotonous, and the main parts of Chinese and Western dishes need secondary heating, which influences food taste and nutritional value.
 
How to mitigate climate change and how to attract passengers’ attention to in-flight food are major challenges for Tianjin Airlines.
 
Solutions
 
On the basis of keeping food fresh taste and ensuring adequate supply of nutrients, Tianjin Airlines actively explore little meat, low-carbon and healthy green in-flight food to meet the needs of people who demand for healthy diet. By careful selection of ingredients, reasonable nutrition collection and Chinese cooking, it ensures energy supply, which eases journey fatigue, stimulates appetite of passengers and promotes diet health.
 
Reasonable cooking with more proportion of white meat, eggs, soy products and little proportion of red meat
 
The academia generally believes that excessive intake of red meat will cause cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and other chronic diseases. Therefore, through reasonable cooking, Tianjin Airlines intends to reduce the proportion of red meat and to increase the proportion of while meat, like poultry, fish, eggs and soy products. Eggs are a good source of protein, and its essential amino acid content is far better than red meat; soy products can provide high-quality protein and calcium, which can be saved with a good taste and high nutritional value by making use of Chinese cooking method. For insensitive taste of passengers, Tianjin Airlines try to enhance taste experience by increase sweet, spicy, and hemp seasoning, but not salt. 
 
Provide staple food to increase more dietary fiber, vitamins and mineral
 
For Tianjin Airlines, ensuring adequate energy supply is the primary task of in-flight food. Cereal-based staple food was improved by increasing the proportion of purple rice, corn, buckwheat and oats, which provide not only energy but also more quality nutrients, such as tryptophan, carotene and vitamin B1. For example, tryptophan keeps passengers calm, promotes their sleep and eases their fatigue in the whole trip. All of these methods have solved the problems that traditional in-flight staple food, like rice and noodle, contains less dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals.
 
Enrich fruits and vegetables by increasing the colorful vegetables and provide fresh fruit
 
Vegetables and fruits are effective supplements of staple food. Tianjin Airlines break the old situation that traditional in-flight food selected some food, like potatoes and cabbage, which can be easy to store, but with single nutritional value. It enrich fruits and vegetables by adding dark green leafy vegetables and other color vegetables. These vegetables not only are full of nutritious, but also stimulate the appetite of passengers from vision to taste. Due to these reasons, the value of the food has been evaluated in passengers’ heart. They are rich in vitamin C, zinc and other nutrients that have the effect of stimulating appetite. Fungus is available to passengers. It contains monosaccharides, disaccharides and polysaccharides, which can significantly enhance the human immune system. In addition, dragon fruit, kiwi fruit, mango and other fresh fruit will be appropriately provided, which can enhance the sensitivity of taste of passengers.
 
Achievement
 
Social benefit
 
Green in-flight food project of Tianjin Airlines aims to help the government achieve the target that reduces per capita meat consumption by 50%. By the means of public propaganda, it will achieve the goal that reduces per capital meat consumption from 6o kilograms per year to 29 kilograms per year in 2020. The project will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change.
 
The public has been promoted to choose a healthy meal plan. Tianjin Airlines' Green in-flight food project aims to improve the traditional monotonous in-flight meal to provide passengers with less meat, low-carbon and healthy food to ensure adequate energy supply with rich taste experience and meet the demand for healthy diet. From a more long-term perspective, green in-flight food project cause passengers to pay attention to the healthy diet, promote the adjustment of daily dietary habits, optimize the food mix, and pay attention to nutritional supplements to reduce the risk of "disease from the mouth".
 
Waste and greenhouse gas emissions was reduced. Tianjin Airlines hopes to significantly reduce food waste and consumption of meat, especially ruminants (such as cattle, sheep). This project is simple but effective. It’s possible to bring the whole industry changes and benefit the world. For example, Tianjin Airlines replaced 100 grams of tofu with 100 grams of beef by using the same ingredients and production method. Compared with passenger who eats the traditional beef meal, passenger who eats the healthier tofu meal will contribute to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by 91%, equivalent to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that a car drives 43 km.
 
If all passengers select healthier low-carbon tofu meals instead of beef meals, the reduced greenhouse gas amounts are equal to the greenhouse gas emissions that A320 aircraft fly 84km or A330 aircraft fly 150 km.
 
Economic benefit
 
With the rapid development of China's civil aviation industry, Tianjin Airlines is seeking a new type of low-carbon, healthy development path to prove that the development of the economy do not need to sacrifice the cost of the environment, which will lead more airlines from different countries to emulate and reduce global greenhouse gas emissions for the benefit of all mankind.
 
Prospect
 
Tianjin Airlines adheres to the brand positioning of "start from you, close to the world", and is committed to providing convenient and practical products and services to create a better travel experience with the attitude of love and understanding together with passengers. In the future, Tianjin Airlines will continue to improve the in-flight meal project, try new cooking methods, increase the fresh fruits and vegetables, reduce meat, and provide a positive exploration and demonstration for the public nutrition diet adjustment and healthy lifestyle transformation.