Onboard Catering Storage: Tower’s Advanced Insulated Boxes
At Tower, we are recognised for our robust, reliable and reusable containers that are typically used to transport thermally sensitive pharmaceutical, life science and cell and gene therapy products safely around the world. But did you know that we also provide onboard catering storage containers for the airline and railway sector?
With our long-standing experience of the cold chain industry, and extensive understanding of transporting temperature sensitive products globally – this also applies when it comes to food.
Reliability
Ensuring the safe transportation of perishable food, beverages and ice, our Advanced Insulated Boxes (AIB4 & AIB7) can maintain fresh and frozen temperatures at 5°C and below 0°C for up to 24 hours.
These containers eliminate the need for dry ice, electricity, or human intervention during transit and utilise a combination of VIP insulating materials and phase change materials (PCMs) to ensure consistent temperature maintenance for onboard catering throughout the entire journey. This allows a single standard Atlas trolley to hold consumables needing two different temperatures thanks to inserts, offering increased flexibility and the options to increasing onboard product offering.
The box also features airtight seals and locking mechanisms to ensure that the contents stay fresh and secure during transport. The size of the boxes can vary depending on the airline or train’s catering requirements, with Tower offering 12.9 L– 26.6 L options, which are designed to fit securely in a standard Atlas airline/rail trolley or box.
Innovation
To continue our commitment to innovation, we ensure that the AIB meets the requirements of our railway and airline catering customers by enabling the inside of the units to be customised for particular catering needs. Therefore, we recently introduced our offering of new oven racks, and basket drawer inserts for the AIBs.
These new additions crucially optimise space inside the units and ensure flexibility to transport meal trays, sandwiches or ice cubes. The oven tray inserts also feature a safety stopper system to prevent sliding or moving during tilting, handling and transit.
With these new add-ons, we wanted to emphasise our commitment to delivering the physical and thermal protection needed for the industry to guarantee consumer safety and reliably to prevent food spoilage.
Sustainability
Our onboard catering storage containers are designed to be used all year round using one packaging instruction per temperature – avoiding extra levels of complication and uncertainty within either validation or operational control. The AIB is food-graded or FDA “known safe” and thanks to their robust design, these containers are extremely robust and durable, offering a more sustainable solution with a longer routable lifespan than other chilled solutions on the market.
As a passive temperature-controlled packaging solution, pre-conditioning and maintenance are much simpler. Operating as a standalone solution without the need for a power source, dry ice or water-based gel packs, our onboard catering insulated containers deliver constant and consistent results while minimising product loss.
All our containers are designed to be fully reusable, and sustainability is at the core of our product design. An additional benefit of these on-board catering containers is their durability, lasting for 5+ years, and being dry-ice free, aligning with the sustainability goals of many organisations worldwide.
The AIBs also provide return catering opportunities to reduce the risk of food waste and offer possibilities for the closure of down route stations to reduce costs, energy or where the uplift does not meet the airline food safety requirements.
Our AIBs ensure the safe transit of perishables without the need for dry ice or electricity, supporting both innovation and environmental responsibility. With customisable insert options and enhanced safety mechanisms, these containers not only meet but exceed the needs of airline and railway catering services, aligning with global sustainability goals and operational efficiency.
Find out more about Tower’s onboard catering storage options and our all-new insert options here: https://www.towercoldchain.com/onboard-catering-insulated-box/
