(upbeat music) - [Narrator] The world's
biggest cruise ship is nearly as long as the
Empire State Building is tall. It's got 20 decks, a
waterpark, and seven pools. But it's main amenity is it's food. - Our research tells us that
our guest's number one priority before they make a vacation decision is they want to know what
they're gonna eat and drink. - [Narrator] Feeding
up to 7,600 passengers and 2,300 crew members means a staff of more than 1,300 people work around the clock, stocking, preparing, and serving an incredible amount of food. So guests get an all
you can eat experience, all while the company
tries to minimize waste. and the complicated process of food prep-- - Right, let's go, let's go. - [Narrator] All starts here. (mellow music) Before every voyage, Icon of the Seas stocks up with massive
amounts of ingredients. Everything from flour to
butter, fresh produce, and meat. Food enters on deck two of the ship through a main passageway they
call I-95, after the highway. It goes all the way from the front to the back end of the ship, connecting the stock rooms to
the prep rooms, to kitchens, also known as galleys. - Every week when we
turn our ships around, a truck will deliver the
amount of beef we order. That may be a truckload that shows up. It gets put into the inventory, which is our large storage system. - [Narrator] Staff plan the shipments based on historical data of what passengers eat on certain routes. It can adjust sourcing based on how many of it's travelers are children. When it's projections miss the mark, the company will go to significant lengths to keep everything on the menu in stock. - You know, it's not like a
shore side restaurant or hotel where if you don't have the product, you can go to the
convenience store next door or the supermarket and pick it up. Once we're at sea, we're at sea. Just a couple of days ago, there was a special product
we needed for a ship and we air freighted that from Miami to make sure that we had
it on board the ship. - [Narrator] But usually
there's plenty of food because the company knows
it's one of the main reasons guests are on the ship. (mellow music) Ingredients are stored
in 22 inventory rooms, including fridges and freezers. Twice a day, chefs from each restaurant put in orders for what they'll anticipate they'll need later that
day and the next day. And inventory staff
gather the ingredients. Then they're taken to prep kitchens.. Here, staff cut all the produce
they'll need for each meal, at least 30,000 per day. There are other prep
kitchens for butchering beef and cutting seafood. Staff work hours in advance, so these ingredients will have time to go to the 37 kitchens around the ship. Like this one where a team prepares tens of thousands of
desserts and baked goods. Staff mix, roll, cut and bake with machines to automate
a lot of the process. So they end up with about
5,000 mini baguettes. - We have 32 first year
to manage the operation. We have a night team
and we have a day team. (upbeat music) - [Narrator] Staff in this kitchen go through about 250
pounds of sugar every day, making items like baked Alaska. 1,600 of them. Before dinner, food has to be approved by the ship's executive chef, who checks that dishes follow the recipes. (mellow music) It's important to get them right because these dishes are
being made on a massive scale. 4,000 lobster tails, 1000
New York strip steaks and over 40,000 portions of
dessert for just one night. - How many pounds onion you use for this? - I use almost 100 pounds. - Good job. Thank you, Chef. (mellow music) - Our main dining room feeds over 6,000 guests every single evening with a la carte menus that
change every single day. - [Narrator] There are also
nearly 40 other restaurants, bars, and lounges serving food. From sit down supper clubs to buffets, a pizza shop that's open
late and a 24 hour cafe, the goal is to cook enough that guests can eat whatever they want, but also to reduce waste. Every year, Royal Caribbean Group ships produce a huge amount of waste. Over 50,000 cubic meters in 2022. That's enough to fill about 13
Olympic sized swimming pools with compressed trash. Leftovers mean Royal Caribbean is paying for too many
ingredients and wasting labor. And it also means the ship
has to deal with more trash. There's also an environmental impact. Cruise ships collectively dump more than a billion gallons of sewage into the oceans each year, according to environmental
non-profit, Friends of the Earth. That includes food waste that
can be toxic to marine life if it's not treated properly. (upbeat music) To reduce waste, staff at
some self-serve locations, like the main buffet, have
started weighing certain foods before they're brought out and then weighing what comes back. It uses this data to decide
how much of each item to order and put out at different times and how large to make portions. - At the beginning of the shift,
we measure all of the items that go out to the buffet and as they come back,
at the end of the day, we measure all of the wasted items. That allows us to provide an
actual versus theoretical, what was produced versus
what we should have used. That allows our chefs to provide better
information to their teams to make decisions about production and how much food to make every
single day for our guests. - [Narrator] The company
says it's reduced waste by 24% since 2019, and it's aiming for a
50% reduction by 2025. There will always be some waste. (mellow music) Food can stay on buffet
lines for up to four hours, though some items need
to be replaced sooner to maintain taste and quality. But staff clear and dispose of everything when the meal window ends, giving them time to set
up for the next meal. - To be completely honest,
our kitchen never sleeps, so we've got people
getting to the butcher room at four in the morning. We've got people at
the bakery at midnight, baking bread for the next morning. It's a significant 24 hour day operation that continues while our
guests are asleep as well. (upbeat music)
