Airlines are surprising beasts at times. Delta Air Lines owns its own fuel refinery, something I thought made a lot of sense what with the price of jet fuel once upon a time. Now I find out another airline owns a farm. The surprises just keep on coming!
It appears the farm is to supplement the first and business class catering operation for the airline, which makes some sense. Sourcing food from your own property would guarantee quality and supply. So, which airline does this?
Korean Air Owns A Farm
Located on Jeju Island in Korea, the owners of Korean opened Je-Dong farm in 1972 when there was a shortage of beef in the country. By the 1990s, beef was more common so the farm switched to supplying high quality food for the airline.
Here’s A Little Video
Below is a little video I found on YouTube about it. While it’s a total puff piece paid for by Korean Air, it does show both Jeju Island and the Korean operation so it’s worth the two minutes to watch it.
The island looks like a pretty nice place to visit on its own but I’d love to visit the farm. I wonder just how many meals get supplied annually for example. Fascinating!
Overall Thoughts
I happened across the information about the farm in a line in a Conde Nasté article about the best airlines in the world for 2017. My first reaction was, “Farm? I need to know more about this!”
A little bit of research took me to a photo article by Brett Snyder about his visit there which is really interesting. I wonder if other airlines have operations like this that people don’t know much about.
Either way, as someone who likes food this is fascinating to me. Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Brett Snyder via Conde Nasté Traveler.
Korean Boeing 747-8 image by tjdarmstadt via Wikimedia Commons.
Fascinating, even though I doubt I will ever fly Korean Air. Did not know about Delta’s refinery, so thanks.
It certainly is something different, isn’t it? I enjoy finding out the weird and wonderful of the aviation industry.