LSG Sky Chefs and Ahr Service cooperate in healthcare Sector
Joint development of new meal services for hospitals and nursing homes
Neu-Isenburg/Oberhausen, Germany -- LSG Sky Chefs and Ahr Service GmbH have signed a strategic cooperation to provide centralized food provisioning services and meal delivery to healthcare institutions.
Ahr Service already provides catering, cleaning and other services to more than 250 hospitals and nursing homes. Institutions that do not have an in-house kitchen and rely on the delivery of meals can now take advantage of the tailor-made solutions provided by Ahr. Those solutions will be produced at any one of the 19 LSG Sky Chefs Customer Service Centers throughout Germany, where roughly 300,000 airline meals are manufactured every day.
"The facilities and logistics of LSG Sky Chefs complement our own catering and management services," said Christian Müsche, Managing Director of Ahr Service. "We were looking for a partner who could meet the high quality and safety standards necessary in the healthcare sector." Thanks to new synergies, the new partners are also considering joint product development. "Our knowledge about processes in hospital catering combined with LSG Sky Chefs' long experience and creativity in international airline catering will enable us to develop new ideas in healthcare meal services concepts," he concludes.
Demand for these services is the highest at hospitals and nursing homes, which is why there are already two pilot projects in place to address the needs of two of these types of institutions.
For LSG Sky Chefs the collaboration with Ahr Service is the key to successfully entering a new adjacent market. "We are the experts in producing top-quality and cost-effective catering service concepts, but Ahr Service's procedure and process know-how in the healthcare sector is essential in bringing our meals to patients," adds Roland Wagner, Managing Director of LSG-Sky Food GmbH.
With LSG Sky Chefs flexibility and Ahr Service's expertise in developing recipes, meal cycles and diet sheets, implementation lead-time will only be eight to 12 weeks.
About Ahr Service GmbH:
Ahr Service's core business activities concentrate on the healthcare sector. For more than 40 years, the company has been offering its customers a wide number of services, ranging from housekeeping and cleaning to catering and food services for patients. Their 5,000 employees help serve more than 250 hospitals and nursing homes in Germany. In late February, the company was recognized by the Great Place to Work Institute for its outstanding employee-friendly environment and it is listed as one of the 100-best employers in Germany. Ahr Service is owned by the Bilfinger Berger Facility Services Group.
LSG Sky Chefs is the world’s largest provider of in-flight services. These include catering, in-flight equipment and logistics, in-flight retail as well as the management of onboard and related airport services. LSG Sky Chefs partners with more than 300 airlines worldwide and operates some 200 customer service centers in 52 countries, producing around 490 million airline meals a year. In 2011, the companies belonging to LSG Sky Chefs Group achieved consolidated revenues of € 2.3 billion.