Monthly Archives: November 2017

How do Cruise Ship Chefs create a Menu

How do Cruise Ship Chefs create a MenuOn board a cruise ship, it’s worth noting that even ‘Today’s Specials’ in the menu have probably been decided weeks earlier. Because cruise lines spend a few days out at sea and are constantly moving from port to port, cruise ship chefs must be prepared for a meal days in advance.

A lot goes into planning the menu for each day. In fact, each meal itself is a logistical behemoth. Cruise trends of emphasising quality and quantity continue, and cruise ship chefs in management must consider optimising the efficiency of production as well as prices of ingredients for it to be a cost-effective operation.

The history of each meal goes all the way back to reservations and sales, where management understands the type of clientele they are expecting each season. Studies have shown that people of different nationalities or cultural backgrounds prefer different types of food. British guests, for example, still prefer roasts dinners and puddings for dessert. Guests from continental Europe opt for more Mediterranean-style dishes that feature fresh seafood and desserts with fruit.

With an understanding of their guest list, including such details as special dietary requirements as allergens or religious restrictions of certain passengers, the cruise ship can go ahead and finalise the menu for each day.

Care is taken to ensure that sufficient variety and distinctiveness is added to cater to both, guests looking for familiar comfort food as well as those who want to try something new. Understanding changing trends is key to creating menus that are enticing yet cost-effective. One cruise reviewer on P&O cruises, for example, discovered that guests were unlikely to touch unfamiliar brands of items such as milk, jam or butter. This means that breakfast menus on that cruise must feature a market survey backed list of spreads and products.

Data has revealed that the Queen Elizabeth II at one point had 1600 items on her inventory list. Compared to this, some full-service hotels barely feature 500 items. Granted the Queen Elizabeth II is a big cruise ship, but sailing with a large number of items is not unusual in this industry.

However, despite this, reports have suggested minimum food wastage. To do this, cruise ship chefs follow a complex maze of cyclical menus. A cyclical menu is a series of menus repeated over a specific period of time – often the length of each cruise trip.

This allows them to use one inventory item for more than one dish, such as lemon curd for a meringue as well as a Swiss roll, while also using leftover food for new dishes – such as leftover roast for beef bourguignonne.

Menus are sometimes changed based on stocks or leftovers so temporary adjustments to the cyclical menu can occur to avoid wastage. However, for the most part, thanks to in-depth insight into passenger trends over the years, the menus remain as planned.

For the main dining room buffet, many items are in high demand daily, including breads, pastas, burgers, pizzas, fresh fruit selections, ice creams, etc. Their presence on the menu is almost guaranteed each day on most cruise ships.

It is interesting to note that trends are moving towards themed buffets and meals. Disney Cruise Line, for example, has recently announced the launch of a Tangled-themed restaurant with themed menus, set to open doors next year. Holland America offers a MasterChef cruise, and there are tons of culinary river cruises in Europe.

For these, drafting the menu for the day will involve even more intricate planning from research to logistics, storage, preparation and service.

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Food safety rules for Cruise Ship Crew

Food safety rules for Cruise Ship CrewApart from creativity and passion, cruise ship chefs jobs demand vigilance and a keen eye on food safety. Being attentive at every step of the food production and service process enables cruise ship companies to keep their guests safe from food related diseases and in turn secure their reputation in the market.

Companies in the US ensure that cruise ship chefs follow the HACCP system – Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point – which research has shown is a viable food safety operation system. By rigorously following the procedures, chefs on board can identify chemical, physical and biological threats at any step of the flow of food – from delivery and storage to cooking and service.
All across the board, including the galley, the HACCP system follows a seven step procedure.

  1. Analysing the hazard

Here, kitchen management and cruise ship chefs carefully observe how food is prepared, cooked and served. Notes are made about each step of the process from temperatures of food to the utensils used and the manner in which the dish is plated. It begins from analyzing the various dishes on the menu and noting which dishes are most susceptible to contamination. This effectively means that every restaurant on board a cruise ship will have its own HACCP system.

  1. Determining the points of risk

This involves observing how the food is made and noting at which points during the process risks can be prevented, removed or reduced to safe limits. These are called critical control points. They could be the minimum length of time or temperature – or critical limit – that a certain food item must be cooked for/at, or that a dirty dish must remain in cleaning solvent or hot water, or even the temperature at which a food must be defrosted at.

  1. Establishing critical limits

At this juncture, cruise ship chefs must determine the highest and lowest points for preventing or removing a hazard or reducing it to safe levels. Procedures may specify how to reach the temperature necessary for cooking a meat product safely, or how long a certain dish could remain in the holding pot.

  1. Formulating procedures for monitoring

With the fourth step, HACCP moves into the next phase of safety – controlling the hazard. This involves specifying ways in which cruise ship chefs or other staff assigned to the job can monitor whether safety measures are being consistently maintained. This can mean checking the internal temperature of each dish or even each individual steak or chicken breast.

  1. Corrective action

If the safety parameter, that is the critical limits, are not met, procedures are to be put in place to guide staff on what to do next. This could mean continuing to cook a dish until it reaches its internal temperature, or discarding a dish that is not considered safe to eat. All corrective action is logged for records.

  1. Checking the system

Through this step, cruise ship chefs are able to figure out if their safety method works. Through hazard analyses, logs, monitoring charts and other records, they are able to check where the weak points of the safety system are and implement remedial action. This remedial action will now form part of the new critical limits to be checked and logged.

  1. Keeping records

Maintaining records and logs are a very important part of the process. Cruise management are able to assess food safety conditions easily. Cruise ship chefs keep records of monitoring activities, remedial action, equipment to ensure they are in good working condition, supplier information including invoices, shelf-life, specifications, etc. This helps revise the HACCP plan often and keep it as watertight as possible.

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