Catering to your aircraft in Imperial.
The Imperial Valley is flat, hot and farmed to the horizon, and Imperial County Airport is its small gateway for business jets. We cook and pack private jet catering for the galley on your tail, delivered to the FBO for the crew to serve.
We know the galley, the diet card and the 5 a.m. re-plate — because we lived them. So we built the caterer we always wished we could call.
Fourteen years on VIP and head-of-state cabins. Can plate for twelve in a G650 galley and still land it hot.
The one who reads every diet card twice. If it says no cross-contact, it means no cross-contact.
Answers at 5 a.m. when the leg moved overnight. Same-day swaps are her love language.
The Imperial Valley is irrigated desert, and it shapes the private jet menu at Imperial County Airport more than any city does. Winter brings lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower and celery; citrus, medjool dates and sweet corn follow through the year. That is the base of our inflight menu and the private jet food we pack for California departures.
Local specialities travel well here: date-sweetened bites, citrus segments, crisp vegetable crudités, and grilled carne asada from the border-influenced kitchens of Imperial and Calexico. We pack them as private jet platters for the cabin, with gourmet inflight meals finished in the oven or served chilled. Private jet snacks cover the quick turns, and every dish is labelled by seat.
Tail, pax, diets, timing. One message — no portal, no quote form. Answered at any hour, by a flight attendant.
Leak-proof boxes, marked by guest and restriction, with reheating times written on the lid.
Two minutes out of the drawer. Whatever you ordered for the crew comes in the same delivery, and one clean invoice follows.
Imperial County Airport sits 54 feet below sea level, in farmland that supplies much of the country's winter lettuce, so private jet catering here starts from produce rather than from imports. Your cabin crew meals, inflight catering and passenger trays are cooked and packed for the galley you actually have, then handed to the FBO or your handling agent. Aviation catering for executive jet catering and business aviation catering runs day and night. For diplomatic flight catering we clear the menu through protocol first.
Business jet catering at Imperial County Airport usually serves a small cabin: a handful of executives, a corporate jet catering order built around one oven, VIP flight catering when a guest list is sensitive. Charter flight catering for a short hop leans on cold plates and a private jet chef's bespoke menu, with luxury inflight catering touches such as dates and citrus from the valley.
When a state visit aircraft catering order lands at KIPL, discretion matters more than volume. Government flight catering and head of state flight catering follow the protocol office's list, while VIP aviation catering keeps staff and labelling confidential.
Special meals at Imperial County Airport are handled as a procedure, not a label. The valley's kitchens lean on wheat tortillas, dairy crema, nuts and shellfish from the Gulf, so allergen free and gluten free meals are packed on separate boards and in separate boxes. Kosher, halal and vegan meals are available on request, and kids meals are cut small and plain. Tell us the restriction by seat and it is written on the tray.
A sheet per guest. Separate boards, separate boxes.
Sealed, certificate in the same box.
Their own menu, nothing to cut at altitude.
Vegan, low-carb, light — composed, never compromised.
Crew meals at Imperial County Airport are available on request and invoiced like any other item. Flight crew meals are boxed separately for the cockpit, pilot meals are built to be eaten with one hand, and crew catering for a long duty day adds hearty options. Cockpit meals avoid the passenger menu, crew meal boxes carry no seat numbers, and different meals for pilots can be arranged per operator policy. Cabin crew meals sit beside them in the order.
FBO catering at Imperial County Airport means one clear handover: catering delivery to the FBO, which passes it to your handling agent at the aircraft. The general aviation terminal is small, so ground handling catering is simple to coordinate, and handling agent catering instructions are written on the order.
Most traffic into KIPL is light and midsize jets, so galley catering here is a hand-carried affair rather than a high loader job. When a larger aircraft calls, we confirm the door height and whether the handling agent can bring a high loader for airside catering delivery. Aircraft provisioning is planned around the galley fitted to the tail: one oven, a few drawers, limited chill space. We pack to that, not to the menu.
Mention it when you orderCertified, inspected, with cold-chain records filed against your trip.
Whichever terminal you park at, handover is at the aircraft, on your slot.
Allergen sheet per guest, halal and kosher on request, sealed and labelled.
Itemised and trip-report ready, sent after the leg.
Imperial County Airport is a public general-aviation field in the Imperial Valley of southeastern California, sitting below sea level. For airport catering it is a calm place: few movements, a small terminal and farmland all around. As a business aviation hub for the valley it handles growers, executives and the odd charter, and the apron stays quiet enough that a plane-side handover is rarely hurried.
Winter brings more business jets to Imperial than summer does, and that rhythm makes the field a seasonal business aviation hub for agriculture and desert travel. We supply inflight catering and in-flight catering, aviation catering, business aviation catering and executive jet catering to that mix; diplomatic flight catering is rare. Cabin crew meals and crew meals are ordered with the rest, and general aviation, FBO services and ground handling services keep the apron simple, with the FBO as the single handover point.
Imperial County follows federal US rules on food entering the country: fresh fruit, meat and dairy arriving from abroad are restricted, and the valley's farm economy means agricultural checks are taken seriously at this business aviation hub. We source domestically, so nothing in your catering order waits on inspection.
Average rating from the cabin crew and pilots we cater for.
“Before our guests boarded at KIPL, we needed avocado toast components and breakfast fruit divided into 6 portions suitable for a changing departure schedule. The canapés came from The Galley Girls in separate meal boxes, with a packing list that matched the contents. This experience of aviation catering gave us a useful reference for managing crew briefing on another departure. Separating the crew provisions from the first service items helped us avoid opening boxes we did not yet need.”
“Packing mushroom risotto and a green salad for 2 passengers at IPL needed careful thought, especially given a small galley worktop. My main takeaway from this aviation catering services order was the practical approach to storage requirements. I asked The Galley Girls to review the breakfast portions quantities against the passenger brief, and the proposed portions made sense. The quantities of canapés matched our service plan, leaving us comfortable with the order before the final briefing.”
“Passenger preferences led us to a seafood starter and warm vegetable sides at Imperial County Airport; 7 portions were needed, with a tight boarding window factored into preparation. I want an aviation catering company to understand written menu details, and this order gave us a useful starting point. The starters from The Galley Girls were organised around the cabin plan, with the later service items kept apart. The crew provisions were reserved for the next stage, so the worktop stayed clear while we prepared the initial dishes.”
Costs at Imperial County Airport vary with ingredients: valley winter vegetables are inexpensive, specialty proteins or kosher items cost more. A hot-weather departure may need extra cold packaging, which is quoted with the order. All of it is invoiced as a catering order.
For the trip home, send us the date and the number on board while you are still on the ground in Imperial. We build the return menu around the same galley and season. Same-day additions are possible and orders placed late are treated as normal.
Customs matter most when food crosses a border. For an early morning slot out of KIPL we pack from local California produce, which avoids declarations on the US side. International destinations may restrict fruit, meat or dairy, and we plan around that.
Yes, personal food can travel, but airside access at KIPL goes through the handling agent. Perishables in summer heat need cold packing the crew may not have. We can supply a chilled box and hand it over plane-side.
Charter quotes cover the aircraft and crew time; food is outside them. A repositioning leg into KIPL with nobody in the cabin can still carry a catering order for the crew. We invoice it on its own, like any order.
Tail, pax and diets — a flight attendant takes it from there, day or night.
