Business Smooth O


ne hundred thousand eggs across 14 days – 4,167 dozen eggs every week – are required on board P&O’s flag-


ship vessel Arvia, which sails the Mediter- ranean in the summer months and the Caribbean during the winter. With 1,700 daily covers just for breakfast at the


ship’s two main restaurants, plus a buffet feed- ing another 3,000 guests and a number of speci- ality restaurants offering that first all-important meal of the day, it’s perhaps unsurprising that so many eggs are needed to satisfy the British holidaymaker’s desire for fried, poached or scrambled as part of their full English. Considering the fact that the ship also has


a pastry team serving 400 different desserts, such as a 6th Street peanut butter jelly tart and Green & Co’s chocolate earth plate across a 14-day cruise (with 5.5 tonnes of ice-cream to accompany it), we’re talking a lot of hard-work- ing chickens. And eggs are only a miniscule part of the


240 tonnes of produce loaded on-board the ship at Southampton, including 11,000 kilos of potatoes and 26,000 litres of milk. And let’s


O Around 1,100 guests dine in speciality


restaurants on board every night. O There are 5,500 visits to the buffet


every day. O 375 piña coladas are served every day,


equating to 137,000 a year. O 70 different menus are available to guests over the course of a fortnight cruise, as well as 30 different menus for crew.


sailing


What does it take to feed a ship-full of guests over two weeks, with consideration over menus, storage and offering a fine dining experience at sea? Caroline Baldwin sets sail with P&O Cruises to find out


Arvia in numbers


not forget 1,500 kilos of bananas, which have their own dedicated storeroom in the depths of the ship so the ethylene gas doesn’t ripen the rest of the kitchen’s precious cargo. Feeding the 5,200 guests and 1,800 crew on


board the 184,700-tonne, 345 metre long and 42 metre wide vessel is clearly no mean feat and a responsibility that lays with Matt Howard, F&B manager on board Arvia. Howard looks after a 900-strong team that creates 35,000-40,000 meals a day for both guests and crew, spending two months on sister ship Iona and two months on Arvia, before having a two-month break at his home in the Caribbean. “It’s a unique life being at sea. No two days


are ever the same and it’s such a challenge, but when you get it right, it’s a buzz,” says the chef, who started his career at the Royal Household at Clarence House and has worked at the likes of the Savoy in London and the Lygon Arms in the Cotswolds. “I had a girlfriend at the time who was a dancer on cruise ships and, more than 20 years later, here I am.” Howard has been F&B manager on 48 ships across three brands and has been with


24 | The Caterer | 10 November 2023


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