Skychef Servair converts chilled meals to frozen meals |07 February 2023

• Does free sampling to gauge customers’ views

Skychef Servair is now the first local company to offer frozen meals after it has converted its chilled meals with a three-day shelf life to a frozen format with a six-month shelf life.

Last Friday, the public was able to taste the different recipes during a free sampling organised on the ground floor of Independence House, in Victoria, before the company distributes the meals in various outlets in the country.

The newly produced frozen meals are presently being sold at the company’s outlets and the STC hypermarket.

Speaking to Seychelles NATION, Skychef Servair sales and marketing manager, Sharon Botchoix, said the customers’ main complaint when the company launched the chilled meals few years back was over the three-day shelf life, which they felt was too short.

“Since it was not selling as much as we had expected and based on the feedback we got from customers, we carried out some tests, and decided to change the format and increase the shelf life to six months,” said Ms Botchoix.

The food catering company said the new recipes do not contain any forms of preservatives.

“Everything is fresh. The machine that we use removes all bacteria in our food, and the food will be good as long as the meal remains sealed. Once you remove the seals, you must use it,” explained Ms Botchoix.

Skychef Servair is doing a survey to get the public’s view and said this will be a regular occurrence as it wants to constantly improve its products.

Ms Botchoix said so far, two free sampling at STC hypermarket has generated very good feedback.

“We are presently waiting for our new packaging before fully launching the recipes next month but right now we are getting customers to taste the new recipes to gauge their feedback,” said Mrs Botchoix.

The new recipes presently being sold in the frozen format are beef stroganoff, chicken curry, beef lasagne and octopus curry. Next month, it will add peri peri chicken, chicken biryani, hoisin chicken and beef pepper sauce, to the list.

The customers who were sampling the meals last Friday had positive comments. Brenda Songor had sampled hoisin chicken, octopus curry and beef stroganoff. She described the taste as “superb”.

Ms Songor, who is a regular customer at their main food outlet at the Seychelles International Airport, said she had never bought their newly produced frozen meals but would “definitely recommend it to the public”.

Another regular customer, Trevor Maria, was tasting lasagne, chicken curry and beef stroganoff and also said it was good and tasty.

The frozen meals’ prices range from R80 to R280 and these include single portion, which include the recipe served with rice and/or lentils, roasted vegetables and pawpaw chutney as well as the multi portion for two or three persons, where customers get only the recipes.

The accompanying photos show some highlights of the free sampling held last Friday.

Patsy Canaya

Photos by Joena Meme