Get a taste of the food trends shaping what we eat at sea—straight from the food and beverage marketplace at Seatrade Cruise Global, one of the cruise industry’s most important events.
From rotating, plant-based menus to swapping traditional bars for tea houses, this episode of Unpacked Minis, Cruise Edition dives into how healthier, fresher food options are making waves in the cruise industry.
Transcript
Aislyn Greene, host: I’m Aislyn Greene, and this is Unpacked Minis, Cruise Edition. I’m standing in a vast room with a cocktail in hand, looking out at what feels like an ocean of food. Welcome to F&B@Sea
David Yeskel: So F&B@Sea is really a, I’d call it almost a marketplace for cruise-line executives who are typically procuring food and beverage, and the suppliers who are supplying them or wish to supply them. So what we have here this year, I say the majority of suppliers have never done business with a cruise line before. And so it, it’s a, a great clearinghouse for ideas and some great tastes for everyone.
Aislyn: That’s David Yeskel, a travel and food journalist who has specialized in the cruise industry for the last 20 years. Seatrade is the annual cruise conference that takes place in Miami each year, and F&B@Sea is where you go to try delicious foods and hear insights about the culinary cruise world. I caught up with David right after his panel on the ways that onboard wellness programs have changed. We found a couch in a crowded cocktail lounge to talk about the trends and treats sailing soon to a cruise ship near you.
Aislyn: David, welcome to this special Seatrade episode of Unpacked. You spoke on a panel today about the way that health and wellness has become a bigger part of the cruise experience. Could you tell me a little bit more about what that looks like and how that has changed from years past?
David: Yeah, so I can tell you that as little as a few years ago, you wouldn’t have necessarily found the terms wellness-focused and cruise F&B in the same sentence. Because the experience up till then was really about the splurge. It was about excess. It was about lots of rich, heavy foods washed down with copious amounts of alcohol.
And not that there’s anything wrong with that model, of course, but, but as guests are living healthier lives ashore, they want to carry that ethos on board with them at least partially so they can feel a little better about their cruise vacation.
So it, it isn’t all about the excess. There’s still an urge to splurge, certainly, but they want to temper that more and more and do at least part of what they’re doing at home. And the cruise lines are accommodating that, of course, because the demand is pulling that supply along. And these dishes now—plant-based, vegan dishes—are so much better than they were even just a few years ago.
Aislyn: And I imagine that extends into the beverage space, especially as people are maybe more sober-curious or do the dry January. How have you seen that evolve?
David: So what I’m noticing on some lines, uh, like on Virgin Voyages, for instance, which everybody thinks of as a constant party—and it kind of is—I’m noticing that the guests may opt for low-alcohol drinks during the day, kind of do a slow burn at the afternoon, at the pool. And then move into full-alcohol drinks at night.
Some are obviously enjoying no alcohol, and there’s this rise of, of no-alcohol mocktails that are much more interesting than they used to be. You know, it was the Shirley Temple at one point, right? That, that was it. Now they’re, essentially, they’re creative cocktails using botanical ingredients, all kinds of interesting ingredients, as well as nonalcoholic spirits. So this is, this has really made mocktails taste like cocktails.
So there’s a brand called Lyre’s, they’re big in that space. They have a nonalcoholic gin, a nonalcoholic vodka, a nonalcoholic whiskey. The idea is they have a little bit of the bite of the alcohol, so it really tastes like you’re drinking alcohol, and when they’re mixed with a good mixer, you wouldn’t know that it’s a nonalcoholic drink.
Aislyn: That is, I think, that big differentiator. The, uh, alcohol-free spirits that I’ve tried haven’t had that kind of, that burn, that bite you’re describing. It’s like, eh, you know, it’s still not really the same thing.
David: And then concurrently we have the rise of teas, specialty teas and smoothies. So for the first few years, I was noticing smoothies introduced on cruise ships. They weren’t healthy smoothies—so much sugar in them. And now the lines have kind of got with the program. So very little sweetener added. Maybe just plain yogurt and berries. Then the berries provide a little bit of sweetness. Maybe some protein powder thrown in. So the smoothies are healthier than they were.
The, the juices, obviously fresh pressed juices, not sugary, uh, you know, or sugar-added juices; teas, a whole revolution in teas. I was on, um, an MSC ship, the MSC World Europa, and there was one beverage outlet dedicated to just tea. Uh, they had a full tea menu, all kinds of interesting teas from India, from all around the world. It was a tea house essentially that took the place of what was previously a bar on this ship.
Aislyn: That’s a shocker, I have to admit. Well, are there cruise lines that you would name specifically for, you know, a wider range of offerings like vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, that you think are really doing that well?
David: I can tell you they’re all, all the cruise lines are doing something unique in that space and in all, in all levels of the cruise industry. So, starting in the contemporary and the mass-market level, Carnival Cruise Line has this great vegan menu they’ve introduced in their main dining rooms. Every night it’s a completely different menu. Four or five appetizers, four or five mains, and a few desserts. All vegan, a lot of plant-based, and I’ve tried a lot of these items, these dishes, and they’re good. People wouldn’t normally expect—they think of a Carnival as a party-hardy mass-market cruise line—that there’d be a call for or a demand for vegan and plant-based dishes. But, but there is.
And so not only was I surprised that Carnival offered this, but I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of these items. I tasted most of them; they were very good, and I saw that there was demand for them. So on that level of the industry, certainly all through in the premium level, Holland America Line, Celebrity, and Princess are all doing a good job on plant-based and vegan.
The next level up, which is called upper premium. A lot of consumers aren’t familiar with that term, but those are lines like Oceania, Viking, and Azamara. I notice on their, their, their casual, even their buffets, there’s a plant-based section now and plant-based foods there.
And, of course, at the top end of the industry, the luxury players, and uh, I was just on Explora Journeys—this is MSC’s luxury brand. They do a great job. Every menu has vegan, plant-based options. The buffet has vegan and plant-based options at every station. So more and more, I’m seeing this in every niche in the industry. There’s a growing supply of these offerings.
And I could tell you they’re much better than they were even three or four years ago. The plant-based and vegan dishes are better in terms of taste, quality, texture, than they ever were. And something I was just talking about on, on this panel I just hosted were even gluten-free baked goods. I could tell you, up till about five years ago, gluten-free baked goods had the consistency of dry sand but didn’t taste as good as dry sand.
And now that there’s a variety of flour, new flours they’re using, with almond flour, even those gluten-free baked goods are much better. So not only is there a larger variety of items, but they’re better in terms of taste, texture, and quality than they ever were.
Aislyn: Wow. That’s exciting. You don’t have to throw them overboard and make an anchor out of them anymore. Well, in terms of some of the other trends that we’re seeing in kind of cruise F&B, one of the things that I’ve been hearing a lot about is local sourcing and really emphasizing that. Is that something that you’ve seen evolve?
David: So a lot of the lines are trying to do as much local sourcing as possible. It’s relatively problematic because they can’t take on provisions in every port. So before a cruise line does business with a supplier, they have to be vetted. They have to make sure they can deliver the same quality product every time they procure. That’s not always possible in some small ports.
So while they do do a good job of sourcing occasionally from local ports, they need to depend on their purveyors in their turnaround port where the ship turns around and embarks passengers. But in a lot of cases, those purveyors that are trusted and vetted by the cruise line are able to source product from some of these smaller purveyors. So small fishmongers, relatively in their region even.
So, while the cruise line can’t take product directly from some of these small purveyors, their, their principal partners in their turnaround ports can, and they do the vetting and make sure that the product is the same quality every week or every two weeks when they need to get it.
What a lot of cruise lines are doing now, typically on the upper end of the industry and the luxury sector, [is] shopping with the chef. So typically [this happens on] smaller ships that don’t need as much product and they’re looking for specialty items. So the guests will sign up for a shore excursion, essentially a small group that goes out with the chef early in the morning in a port.
I did it in Bergen, Norway, with Seabourn Cruises. We went out with the chef. He went to his fish market sources that he knows and trusts. We went around, he was tasting, he gave us all a taste, and he had crew members with him with an ice chest. They were pulling an ice chest in a wagon, and he would buy a few pounds of different types of fish to bring back to the ship to prepare later for, for the guests. That was really an example of how, how focused and locally focused they can do things.
Aislyn: Love it. Combination of excursion and dining. Well, are there other trends that you’ve seen in this space that you think are going to start to hit the cruise lines?
David: I think most food and beverage trends are still starting landside—shoreside restaurants in bigger cities, of course, but they’re taken up pretty quickly on board cruises because sophisticated guests, especially for upper premium and luxury guests, they’re demanding and they wanna see the products they’re used to and the foods they’re used to.
So, so we’re seeing more sophisticated ethnic cuisines. We’re seeing some high-end Chinese restaurants, high-end Japanese restaurants, Mediterranean, uh, sometimes Spanish tapas served aboard. So yeah, we’re seeing trends from ashore migrate, as well as more ethnic choices that before weren’t really maybe desired by as large a demographic, and now they are. So the cruise lines are bringing that on board.
Aislyn: Well, I was curious to know, how often do restaurants rotate, and is that something that it’s harder to change on a cruise ship than it might be out in a city?
David: It is harder to change on cruise ships, especially the lines that have a lot of ships. So for instance, Carnival’s now the largest line in the world in terms of number of ships. They have 29 ships. So they can introduce something new on one ship and try it out. And they do do that, see if it works on one ship. But then rolling it out is a big task. So the smaller lines can be a little more agile.
So I was just on this panel here at F&B@Sea where we had Celestyal—they have two ships—um, Cunard Line [has] four ships, and Virgin Voyages [has] three ships and are soon to have a fourth. These lines are smaller, so they’re able to turn on a dime a little more and try something new. So Virgin Voyages just announced that in their Razzle Dazzle restaurant—which by the way, is a plant-based, veggie-forward restaurant—they’re instituting a Chinese menu at night, during dinner. So it’ll be plant-forward during the day. At night, it’ll be Chinese. And they’re gonna try that out. If it works, they might expand that to their other ships.
The larger cruise lines have a difficult time doing that because once they make a commitment to that, it’s rolling it out across their fleet. It’s a big investment. They’ve gotta make sure it’s gonna have traction because it’s tough to undo something like that they’ve done, and, and it’s expensive.
Aislyn: Is there any other culinary news that’s come out of Seatrade or F&B@Sea that you’ve been excited about?
David: I’m seeing a lot of innovation in, in bites and in, like, gourmet bites that the cruise lines may wanna offer as well as some new drink options. There are so many new vendors and suppliers who are vying to be picked up by the cruise lines. So, interesting alcohol products. There’s some great flavored tequilas with cream and chocolate. Um, there’s a, a duck purveyor from the Pacific Northwest that is pushing this duck, uh, bacon wrapped around a date for a little kind of guilty-pleasure bite that’s great.
Aislyn: Well, that duck bite sounds fantastic. Shall we go taste some more things?
David: Let’s go try one of these. It’s great.
Aislyn: I spend the rest of my afternoon tasting my way around the conference center. My favorites include an Italian flatbread with prosciutto and arugula and a chocolate frozen yogurt made with pea protein. Sounds wild, but it was so delicious!
You’ll find links to David’s website and social handles in the show notes, as well as links to Afar’s recommendations for the best cruise lines for food. Check back next week for our final round of Seatrade food coverage, featuring the top cruise trends to watch for this year—and where to cruise next.
This has been Unpacked Minis, a podcast from Afar. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Music composition by Chris Colin. And remember, the travel world is complicated. We’re here to help you unpack it, mini bite by mini bite.
