Healthy Cooking and Eating: Fuelling Wellbeing at Sea

A new training programme from our Quality Catering Division is helping galley teams support crew health through every meal they serve.

Life at sea places unique demands on seafarers. Long hours on your feet and physically demanding tasks require energy and focus, making good nutrition an important part of everyday life onboard.

As wellbeing receives increasing attention across the maritime industry, healthier lifestyles and nutrition are becoming a greater focus. A 2025 SEAFiT Crew Survey, conducted by SAFETY4SEA and gathering feedback from more than 21,700 seafarers across 1,700 vessels, identified physical wellbeing as a key factor influencing welfare and happiness at sea. The findings reinforce the importance of supporting long-term health through practical, everyday measures onboard.

Fleet Management is responding through its Quality Catering Division (QCD), the in-house catering and nutritional excellence team supporting our managed vessels. QCD's new Healthy Cooking and Eating programme trains Chief Cooks, General Stewards and galley personnel to prepare nutritious meals without compromising on flavour or variety.

Nutrition Without Restriction

One of the programme's core messages is that healthier eating should not come at the expense of enjoyable food.

Rather than focusing on restriction, participants learn how ingredient choices, portion control and healthier cooking methods can support healthy weight management, sustained energy levels, digestive health and overall wellbeing.

The programme helps catering teams create balanced menus using ingredients commonly available onboard, while maintaining flavour, variety and crew satisfaction.

Beyond individual recipes, Healthy Cooking and Eating reflects the growing role galley teams play in supporting life at sea. Today's catering teams are helping shape habits that contribute to healthier crews, stronger wellbeing and safer voyages.

Programme In Practice

Over two days of theoretical and practical learning at QCD headquarters in Mumbai, the specialised training module covers a range of topics for Chief Cooks, General Stewards and galley personnel that include:

1. Nutrition & Calorie Awareness: Builds a practical understanding of calories, food groups, nutrient functions, daily energy requirements, and basal metabolic rate (BMR), helping galley teams support healthier choices onboard.
2. Healthy Meal Planning & Weight Management: Equips participants to design balanced daily and weekly menus that promote nutritional adequacy, portion control, calorie balance, and sustainable eating habits.
3. Smart Ingredient Selection & Healthier Substitutions: Explores nutrient-dense ingredients and practical alternatives to high-fat, high-sugar, and calorie-dense foods while maintaining flavour, variety, and crew satisfaction.
4. Modern Healthy Cooking Techniques: Covers healthier preparation methods such as steaming, grilling, baking, roasting, poaching, stir-frying and air frying to reduce unnecessary fat and calorie intake.
5. ‍Healthy Onboard Menus & Culinary Application: Demonstrates how to create nutritious breakfasts, soups, main courses, salads, desserts, smoothies, and snacks using ingredients commonly available onboard vessels.

A Healthy Commitment

Interest in healthier lifestyles is continuing to grow across the maritime workforce. In a 2025 study examining wellbeing and physical fitness on vessels, over 60% of seafarers surveyed expressed an interest in health-promotion initiatives such as healthy eating.

Through Healthy Cooking and Eating, Fleet Management is translating that interest into everyday habits onboard. Working alongside Fleet Care, QCD is further integrating nutrition into Fleet's wider approach to crew welfare while continuing to explore new ways to support healthier lifestyles at sea, one meal at a time.