The organisers of World Travel Catering & Onboard Services Expo (WTCE) have announced that sustainability will be a prominent theme for this year’s Taste of Travel Theatre programme. The Taste of Travel Theatre will see panels of professionals from airlines, rail services, consultancies and industry associations debate the challenges encountered by operators as they strive to reduce their environmental footprint. The event programme was recently released.
An understanding of the scale and composition of cabin waste is essential when developing solutions to the problem of aircraft cabin waste and the circularity required. With this in mind, and with the support of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and several of the world’s leading airlines, the Aviation Sustainability Forum (ASF) recently completed a Cabin Waste Composition Audit Programme hosted by Asia’s leading caterer, SATS Ltd, in Singapore.
The results of this extensive research will be announced for the first time at this year’s Taste of Travel Theatre. The results will highlight the challenges the aviation sector faces in terms of cabin waste reduction, complexity and circularity, and the billions of dollars a year this is costing airlines and caterers, as well as the impact it is having on the environment.
In this extended session, a panel of experts from across the sector will address the size and scale of the problem globally, and explore potential solutions and quick wins that can be implemented now. They will debate how the work requires a review of the regulatory barriers to circularity that must be broken down, and the collaborative cross-sector innovation that is essential in order to re-invent and re-design the inflight products and services of the future. Moderating this session will be Matt Crane, founding member of ASF and 2024 WTCE Ambassador for Sustainability, who will also set the scene for debate in his keynote speech on day one of the show (Tuesday, 28th May).
“The ASF-IATA Cabin Waste Composition Audit Programme is the first of its kind to be completed to this scale and depth,” said Crane. “We hope the audits will provide the sector with the foundations needed to help develop the cabin waste solutions of the future, and we are delighted to finally share the findings at this year’s WTCE. I’m particularly looking forward to discussing with the panel how we can use this data to assess the challenges we face and take a more in-depth look at the potential solutions as part of the sessions at Taste of Travel this year.”
The Taste of Travel Theatre will be located in Hall A1 at Hamburg Messe from 28-30 May 2024. In addition to the programme of educational sessions there will also be live cooking demonstrations and tasting opportunities. All sessions are free to attend.
