Richard Branson has done it again. The pioneering entrepreneur who purportedly offered William Shatner of Star Trek fame a free ride on the inaugural space flight of Virgin Galactic has a brand spanking new, “break the mold” style terminal for Virgin Airlines in San Francisco airport.
The biggest surprise? The $383 million terminal does not feature the headache and indigestion inducing fast food joints typical of most airport eateries.
Indeed, three quarters of the restaurants and retailers in the SFO Virgin terminal are – gasp – LOCAL!
Vendors serving food are being asked by terminal management to serve organic and locally sourced ingredients. Cage free eggs, Fair Trade coffee and non-hydrogenated oils are also encouraged.
Water filling stations are readily available to discourage the wasteful practice of using plastic water bottles and vendors selling bottled water are encouraged to utilize brands with compostable containers.
Customers finished with their meal will be invited to compost food leftovers and recycle containers at stations planned for addition to the communal dining area, although customers uncomfortable with the ins and outs of green living will have the typical garbage bins available as well.
Mmmm, wonder if I can re-route my next trip to the West Coast so that any required layovers occur at SFO right about mealtime?
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Source: Virgin’s Airport Terminal of the Future
that’s great! thanks for sharing. we always pack our own meals/snacks when flying because you can rarely find anything healthy beyond a piece of non-organic fruit. so wonderful to see someone providing healthy options for hungry travellers! 🙂
I always use my flying days to Intermittent Fast.
That’s actually a really great idea! I may try that on my flight to SE Asia next month. I think I would benefit more from not eating than putting fast food in my body all day.
This is AWESOME! Great step in the right direction for airports! When I was 100% gluten-free it was next to impossible for me to find a safe meal to eat at the airport. Flying within Canada is great because I can bring my OWN real food but when crossing the border I’m forced to leave the majority of my food at home and eat what’s there…. which isn’t good food!
Wow! That’s great! Too bad any dreams of air travel have been dashed by the high price of tickets.
It will be interesting to see the pricing since presumably fast food would appeal to the majority of travelers still.
That’s awesome! My husband and I were just talking about how we should go visit his family in that region…so maybe we’ll get to check it out!
That’s pretty damned awesome. Hopefully this will be the start of a trend in other airports.
One can hope! It is SO hard to get decent food while traveling and one can only subsist on healthy snacky things in a travel bag for so long ….
THAT is so cool!!! YAY I am from SF so I always fly into/out of SFO, and Virgin has the best service by far. I hope he expands this concept to other airports 🙂
If only our local airport had anything remotely similar. A mom can dream . . . and write letters.
Same here! Next month I’m going on a missions trip to the Philippines and I’m worried about what to eat. I have a Berkey sport bottle and I’m laying in a supply of Larabars, but I’m not sure I can live on them 🙂 I’m planning on gorging on probiotic foods and taking a supplement, as well as lots of coconut oil, in the time leading up to the trip. I’m also bringing the supplement and some coconut oil along with me. Guess I’ll just have to make the best choices I can over the course of the nine days and trust all the good little bacteria I’ve put in it will take care of me 🙂