Historically, shipping companies have managed the catering service on board ships with their own resources until the early 1980s when the number of marine catering service providers has started growing.

What is an Offshore catering company?
An Offshore catering company refers to service providers that delivers majorly food to crew on board of the ships positioned in key worldwide locations as well as ship’s staff such as cooks, camp bosses, housekeepers and stewards.

What are the benefits of outsourcing Offshore catering service providers?

The benefits of contracting an offshore catering service provider are not only addressed to the enormous reduction of workload associated with ship's staff and office staff, but also:

- Regulatory compliance with International and local health and hygiene standards, preservation and proper handling of food stuffs;
- Quality provisioning in line with crew dietary expectations, cultural and religion backgrounds;
- Consistency of product quality and competitive pricing due to volume driven procurement power;
- Reduced wastage through proper stock administration and cost optimisation;
- Better utilization of internal resources by outsourcing the provisions supply;
- Accurate provisioning budget throughout the year ensuring financial consistency;
- Healthy and well balanced menus based on nutritional guidelines;
- Prevention of negligence by the crew members such as smuggling and corruption;

Yet, even though the benefits of outsourcing marine catering services remain to be obvious, there are many shipping companies that are reluctant and prefer to maintain in-house catering.
As a result of this reluctancy, many are the shipping companies that frequently occur into issues such as:
- Higher costs leading to out of control scenarios;
- Hard procurement of qualitative and quantitative food items;
- Struggle on hiring competent and qualified staff due to a bad reputation;
- Extensive use of disposables with relevant environmental impacts;
- Increase of work overload impacting physical and mental health;
- Scarcity of Menus choice and heavy reliance on frozen and non nutritional foods;
- Illegal provision of food and corruption affecting the morale of the crew members.

In conclusion, we can all agree that outsourcing offshore catering services is the most effective way to heighten morale and fuel crew productivity even in the most remote and challenging offshore environments.
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