WTCE’s Taste of Travel Theatre Shines a Spotlight on Sustainability

Organisers of World Travel Catering & Onboard Services Expo (WTCE) have announced that this year’s Taste of Travel Theatre line-up will showcase sustainability as a prominent theme for the programme. Taste of Travel Theatre, produced in association with Onboard Hospitality and sponsored this year by En Route, will see panels of professionals from airlines, rail services, consultancies and leading industry associations debate the challenges around operators improving their environmental footprint as passengers become more aware of the impact they have on the planet.

Understanding the scale and composition of the cabin waste problem is the baseline needed to develop solutions to cabin waste reduction and the circularity required. With the support of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and several of the world’s leading airlines – the Aviation Sustainability Forum (ASF) has 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 very first time on this year’s Taste of Travel Theatre stage. They will highlight the challenges the sector faces on 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 our 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 this requires a review of the regulatory barriers to circularity that must be broken down, and the collaborative cross-sector innovation that is essential 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, 28 May).

In summary, Crane said: “The ASF-IATA Cabin Waste Composition Audit Programme is the first of its kind to be completed to this scale and depth. We hope the audits will provide the sector with the foundations to help develop the cabin waste solutions of the future and 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.”

Taste of Travel Theatre, produced in association with Onboard Hospitality and sponsored this year by En Route, will be located in Hall A1 at the Hamburg Messe from 28-30 May 2024. In addition to the programme of educational sessions there will be live cooking demonstrations and tasting opportunities will also take place. All sessions are free to attend.