Honestly, I am less than impressed. In fact, even the simplest business probably has stuff behind the scenes that most people aren't aware of (probably even a lemonade stand).

Like anything complicated, it can be broken down into several simpler items. Trash: int'l gets dealt with differently than domestic. Shouldn't be too complicated; everyone knows which planes come from where. As far as actually dealing with the trash, I see that as a separate division/entity from the one cooking the food (at least I hope so!) Food: most of it is just putting the stuff in the right place: every tray gets silverwear, salad dressing... "the works". The actual food isn't complicated either. Most salads have 1/2 leaf of lettuce and some minuscule quantity of some other ingredient (1/2 olive, 1 pine nut or the like). Yes, someone has to place the stuff in hundreds, even thousands of tiny salad bowls, but there's nothing really complicated about that. The rest of the food is hardly complicated: place 1 scoop of rice in each of the x little trays, 3-4 1" cubes of meat and 1 tablespoon sauce - something along those lines. It's tedious and repetitive, but definitely not complicated.

Some restaurants have very complicated operations and do just fine. Big restuarants, lots of customers, several types of food (not just chicken or pasta), with everything made in-house from fresh ingredients... and they also deal with serving the food, appearance, and much more. My client now is a major cell phone provider - THAT is complicated! In comparison, airplane catering sounds like a piece of cake.

Still, it's unfair to blame the poor quality of the "food" on the catering company. It has to be small, it has to last several hours while it is being packaged and transported, then it has to last in the fridge or freezer for several hours, it needs to be just conveniently reheated, somewhat neutral taste and more importantly, it has to be cheap. The airlines are the ones that require this, not the catering company. I'm sure if the airlines wanted to have GOOD food served and would be willing to pony up the money the catering companies could accommodate that. The only time I think it may be the catering company messing up is when I hear that one thing or another has not been loaded on the aircraft (or not enough of it) and is therefore not available.