B2B CONTRACT FOOD PROGRAMME | CAIRO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

National Bank of Egypt Platinum Lounge: Keeping a 24/7 Airport Lounge Supplied

For six months in 2023, LOriental served as the food-production and replenishment subcontractor for NBE’s Platinum Lounge at Cairo International Airport, supporting a 24/7 operation with rotating breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, continuous cold-food availability and frequent additional deliveries when demand surged.

PERIOD: Six months in 2023
LOCATION: Cairo International Airport, T3 Gate F
OPERATING MODEL: 24/7 lounge; three hot meal windows + continuous cold-food availability
LORIENTAL ROLE: Food production, frequent delivery/replenishment, service-team training & bilingual labels

A 24/7 lounge, a defined food-production role

The lounge’s master contractor held the main contract with National Bank of Egypt and managed guest-facing service inside the Platinum Lounge. LOriental was subcontracted for the food programme: producing the menu, delivering it to the airport and replenishing it as the lounge moved through its operating day.

That boundary matters. LOriental did not supply the lounge servers or manage front-of-house service. Its responsibility was to keep food available continuously for a 24/7 premium lounge, with hot and cold items following different service rhythms across the day.

Three dayparts, seven days of rotation

The menu was structured around breakfast, lunch and dinner across a seven-day rotation. That mattered because lounge users included repeat travellers and premium banking customers who could encounter the food offer more than once during the six-month programme.

Breakfast moved through formats such as croque madame, shakshouka, egg muffins, omelets, sausages and hot sides. Lunch and dinner rotated through dishes including honey-soy glazed chicken, Thai coconut curry chicken, Greek chicken souvlaki, Hungarian beef goulash, Mongolian beef, garlic-butter shrimp and Moroccan seafood tagine, supported by rice, pasta, noodles, vegetables, appetizers, salads and desserts.

Hot meal windows, food available around the clock

The lounge operated 24/7, but not every food item followed the same rhythm. Hot breakfast, lunch and dinner items were produced around service windows of roughly three hours, while cold items that could remain available for longer had to keep the lounge furnished between those main meal periods.

This was therefore not a single daily drop-off. Recurring airport orders covered hot food, finger food, sandwiches and desserts, with food moving from the central kitchen to the airport repeatedly across the day as needed. The operating requirement was continuous availability, not one scheduled delivery.

The final service sat with another team

Because the master contractor’s service staff handled the food after delivery, LOriental had to protect the standard beyond its own kitchen and dispatch team. Their staff were trained on how LOriental’s items should be presented, garnished and served to lounge visitors.

Menu-item labels were also prepared in both English and Arabic so the service team could identify the food correctly and present the offer consistently. The handoff was part of the operating model: the food changed hands before it reached the guest, so the presentation standard had to be transferable.

Rush periods changed the plan in real time

Airport demand does not always consume food at the rate a production plan predicts. Morning rushes could drain breakfast faster than expected; a sudden wave of passengers could accelerate consumption and trigger an urgent request for additional items or supplies.

The kitchen therefore had to handle both planned production and short-notice replenishment. When food ran low, the response was not to wait for the next scheduled meal cycle: additional quantities had to be prepared and dispatched while the lounge remained live.

Six months alongside the event calendar

The programme ran for six months from the same central kitchen LOriental was using for its event business. Lounge production became a recurring operating stream alongside weddings, corporate events and other catering work rather than replacing them.

That parallel load is an important part of the case. The kitchen had to absorb rotating daily menus, recurring dispatches and unplanned top-up requests without disrupting LOriental’s event operations. The six-month programme was sustained alongside the normal event calendar.

What this case proves

The NBE Platinum Lounge demonstrates LOriental’s ability to sustain a six-month food programme for a 24/7 airport environment through rotating menus, recurring production, frequent replenishment and short-notice response to demand spikes.

It also demonstrates two less visible capabilities: transferring presentation standards to a third-party service team, and carrying a continuous institutional food programme in parallel with a live event-catering business from the same central kitchen.