As dawn breaks over the bustling galleys of Carnival Corporation’s cruise ships, culinary teams meticulously prepare thousands of meals that will delight guests throughout the day. Behind this impressive operation lies an equally impressive commitment: finding smart ways across its world-class cruise lines to ensure food and ingredients don’t go to waste.

Operating the world’s largest cruise company with a global fleet of 90+ ships visiting over 800 ports and destinations presents unique opportunities to integrate sustainable practices throughout every phase of the food lifecycle. In delivering exceptional dining experiences to almost 13.5 million guests annually, Carnival Corporation has developed our comprehensive “Less Left Over” food waste reduction strategy, which spans from onboard operations to port communities worldwide.

“Even small improvements can have enormous positive impacts when you’re serving millions of meals each year,” says John Haeflinger, SVP, Maritime Policy & Analysis at Carnival Corporation. “We’re constantly analyzing our approach to optimize sourcing and production, and creating new pathways to responsibly manage the rest so there is less left over. We’ve already cut our food waste by nearly one pound per person per day, and we’re always looking for ways to do more.”

Through our Less Left Over strategy, we have reduced food waste per person by nearly half since 2019, surpassing our 2025 reduction target a full year ahead of schedule and tracking toward our ambitious 50% reduction goal by 2030. The strategy is also helping our company’s bottom line, avoiding over $250 million in food purchases to date (vs. 2019 levels) that would have gone uneaten. This achievement rests on optimizing every bite, donating surplus meals to feed others and responsibly managing any scraps that remain.

Optimizing Every Delicious Bite Onboard

Well before any food makes it to the galley, advanced data-driven technology helps our culinary teams analyze guest and crew dining trends to fine-tune how much food is purchased for each sailing. It also provides insights for optimizing food utilization based on serving flows, avoiding excess food from the start.

Once fresh produce arrives in the galley, culinary teams work diligently to use as much of every ingredient as possible with precise preparation guides that limit scraps as part of the Less Left Over approach. They leverage creative ways to get the most out of each ingredient, like transforming orange peels into citrus muffins or turning unused bread into croutons.

These efforts all come together on the plate, where guests and crew enjoy perfected, tasty recipes served in “just right” portions that allow those with hearty appetites to enjoy second helpings while having less left over from light eaters and grazers.

Creating the Blueprint for Donating Surplus Meals to Registered Food Banks

While our corporate-wide goal is to have less uneaten food in the first place, we work hard to keep any unused food from going to waste. It’s in this context that our Costa Cruises line had a vision to collaborate with food banks in the ports where it operates to find a new life for the high-quality extra food and meals prepared aboard but not served on its ships.

Food banks are non-profit organizations dedicated to alleviating hunger, marginalization and poverty, and promoting the fight against food waste by coordinating and organizing the recovery of food surpluses through Banco Alimentare Organisations, which then distribute the food free of charge to Territorial Partner Organisations that support people and families in need.

Costa knew it was possible, but that the unprecedented program would require new procedures never before established for preparing surplus meals for offloading. So, the Costa team began working with authorities to align extensive maritime and shoreside food and beverage health safety regulations to – for the first time – enable donations ashore.

The hard work paid off, and Costa Cruises became the first cruise line in the world to lock in the regulatory framework to make donating delicious, gourmet ready-to-eat meals to community food banks a reality. These collaborative efforts have been repeated time and again to establish the proper regulatory framework in several countries that now allow our Costa Cruises line to donate surplus food that would have previously been impossible due to unnecessary regulatory barriers. 16 total ports were included in the project since the beginning of the program, with more than 300,000 of food portions donated throughout the Mediterranean and the Caribbean.

“Many of the communities we visit have a local Food Bank doing incredible work to address food insecurity,” explains Luca Zuccolo, Hotel Asset and Sustainability Director. “We’re grateful to partner with these organizations by contributing surplus ingredients and prepared meals that would otherwise go unused, helping support their efforts while ensuring less food goes to waste.”

Today, across Carnival Corporation, we’re working to replicate the model globally, using our food-donation blueprint to further broaden the social impact and help create pathways for responsible food donation that didn’t exist before.

Sustainably Managing the Scraps that Remain

When surplus meals cannot be rescued for use in addressing food scarcity, we still find ways to ensure there is less left over by investing in innovative waste management technologies and systems that responsibly manage and treat unused food scraps.

We have installed hundreds of food waste biodigesters fleetwide that naturally break down and liquefy food waste to a tiny fraction of its original volume. Additionally, dehydrators and dryers process items that are difficult to decompose, while bio-grinder technologies further minimize waste volume so it can be biodigested, released to nature or offloaded ashore.

Our Carnival Corporation Less Left Over strategy is a key ingredient in a larger plan to cut down on waste and embrace a circular economy mindset, both onboard and in our land operations. Our holistic approach demonstrates how the travel and tourism industry can be part of the solution – one meal, one community and one port at a time.

To learn more about Carnival Corporation’s purpose and our positive impact worldwide on people and the planet, go to www.carnivalcorp.com/impact/.

“It began nearly a decade ago while we were looking to cut food waste across our operations so we would have less left over,” said Giuseppe Carino, Sea-Land Experience Operations Senior Vice President at Costa Cruises. “We overhauled every aspect of how we plan, purchase, store, prepare and serve our food, which greatly reduced the amount of unserved food we had left onboard. But just like eating at home, we always have some delicious, healthy food remaining after each meal service.”

That’s when the team had an idea: Collaborate with food banks in the ports it visited to rescue the unserved meals and food portions for donation to local families in need.

“We thought it would be easy – just call the food banks and arrange to deliver the food to their facilities to help feed the community,” said Carino. “Little did we know.”

The team quickly encountered mountains of restrictive laws that, in addition to prohibiting the donations, were ill-equipped to address non-traditional food donation programs like Costa was proposing. Rather than give up and resign themselves to tossing out unserved meals, the cruise line changed tack. They began exploring how to change the outmoded laws unnecessarily prohibiting healthy, nutritious unserved cruise meals from being donated to communities facing food scarcity. 

The Costa team enlisted the help of local authorities and the Fondazione Banco Alimentare food bank in Savona, Italy, who joined forces to retool overly restrictive food and beverage regulations to allow the donations. The hard work paid off. In 2017, Costa became world’s first cruise line to have established a proper, scalable regulatory framework allowing them to donate delicious, unserved ready-to-eat meals to local community food banks.

With the first successful donation program underway, the Costa team was eager to set up similar programs in other ports. Just five months after kicking off meal donations in Savona, Costa again worked with Banco Alimentare to launch the meal recovery program in a second port, Civitavecchia.

John Portelli, general manager at Roma Cruise Terminal, said, “Twice a week in Civitavecchia, nutritious surplus food and gourmet meals are offloaded from Costa ships and given to the Red Cross, Archdiocese of Civitavecchia and the Rotary Club of Civitavecchia to distribute to about 100 families. That means fewer people going to bed hungry, thanks to Costa Cruises.”

Using the Savona program as its blueprint, Costa has expanded the program to a total of 16 total ports, as of 2024. As a result of this expanded reach, Costa has donated hundreds of thousands of food portions to communities throughout the Mediterranean and the Caribbean since the program’s inception. To broaden its impact even further, Costa is working with its sister Carnival Corporation cruise lines to replicate the model globally in other cruise port communities.

Sion Riera, president of the food bank in Palma de Mallorca, which became the 16^th port to benefit from the program in 2024, invited the rest of the industry to follow suit: “We welcome other cruise lines to follow Costa Cruises’ lead.”

In a world where the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates 40% of the global food supply is lost or wasted, innovative solutions like Carnival Corporation’s cruise meal donation program are powerful examples of how finding ways to have less left over can help drive greater food security worldwide. As the company expands the program to more global regions, it welcomes the opportunity to share its learnings within the cruise industry and beyond to foster similar meal surplus donation practices across global industry.

For more information on the company’s long-term sustainability vision, visit https://www.carnivalcorp.com/impact/.

From sea to table: Rail division and lodges embrace rigorous standards for local Alaskan seafood

As the summer season opens to guests in Alaska, the Holland America Princess land dining operations are marking a milestone in their decades-long commitment to the Last Frontier through a comprehensive sustainable seafood initiative. In line with Carnival Corporation’s Less Left Over initiative to reduce unused food and ingredients companywide, the team is sourcing sustainable seafood locally, which supports Alaskan fishing communities while ensuring fresher fish with significantly less spoilage and waste.

The Holland America Princess rail division successfully earned the Marine Stewardship Council certification in spring 2025, along with its two Holland America properties – Holland America Denali Lodge and Skagway Inn – verifying its seafood comes from sustainably managed fisheries that maintain healthy fish populations and ecosystems. The certification is awarded by the Council, a global nonprofit working with scientists, fisheries and industries worldwide to end overfishing.

For Holland America Princess, pursuing this certification across all its Alaska properties reflects its commitment to both exceptional dining experiences and responsible environmental stewardship. In addition to the Holland America Denali Lodge and Skagway Inn, all five Princess lodges received certification approval in early June 2025. Those include Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge, Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge, Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge and Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge.

“The certification progress is massive, but it validates what we’re doing,” explains Jeff Graham, who oversees food and beverage operations for Holland America properties. “We’ve taken sourcing responsibility seriously because of the importance of the seafood industry in Alaska. By combining award-winning culinary experiences with sustainable dining practices, we’re not just creating exceptional meals, we’re ensuring less is left over while reaffirming our commitment to Alaska communities and businesses.”

Sustainable Seafood Journey
By seeking Council certification, Holland America Princess reaffirms its dedication to ocean health, sustainable fisheries and the future of Alaska’s vital marine ecosystems. The thorough certification verifies that wild Alaskan salmon, halibut and black cod served across all properties meet world-class sustainability standards, with meticulous documentation tracking each fish from ocean to plate. Certified locations undergo yearly audits that follow the flow of certified products through the facility from the loading dock to the plate, with careful inspection of all paperwork and documentation to validate sustainability throughout the supply chain.

Thanks to strategic partnerships that Holland America Princess established with responsible local suppliers, such as Anchorage-based Copper River Seafoods – itself a certified vendor – going through the notoriously rigorous certification process was a little less daunting. “We had a relatively streamlined chain of command process because we’re using a certified vendor, and it’s only coming from them to us,” Echo Green, Princess Lodges’ food and beverages operations manager, points out.

Staying Local
The scale of the organization’s investment in Alaska’s fishing economy is substantial. In 2024, the Holland America and Princess properties purchased over 53,000 pounds of Alaska seafood, while Carnival Corporation system-wide sourced approximately 875,000 pounds. This significant economic contribution helps sustain fishing communities throughout the state.

Beyond the immediate value creation for local fisheries, staying local also builds deeper connections with Alaskan fishing communities and traditions. Education plays a vital role in sustaining these fishing practices through several key initiatives.

The popular Holland America Princess “First Fish” program celebrates the official opening of Alaska’s annual fishing season by displaying freshly caught king salmon (or sockeye when conservation is needed) on ice in restaurant lobbies within 24 hours of harvest. This exhibition educates guests about sustainable harvesting methods and the fish’s journey from ocean to plate while creating meaningful conversations about the region’s maritime traditions.

The educational approach extends beyond guests to staff through the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) “Seafood U” training program. In 2024, hundreds of team members completed this comprehensive training, enabling them to confidently share Alaska’s seafood story with guests, from sustainable harvesting practices to the ecological importance of healthy fish populations. This knowledge transfer ensures that both visitors and employees understand the source and significance of the seafood served throughout the Holland America and Princess properties.

Engaging Guests
Guests report tasting the difference in the fresh, wild-caught seafood and the exceptional dining experience means less is left over on the plate, minimizing waste. Sustainable seafood options are easily identifiable through the distinctive blue Marine Stewardship Council logo, displayed prominently on the menus of certified locations.

“We’ll be able to use that logo to drive awareness,” explains Green, highlighting how the certification becomes part of the guest education experience. “It lets diners know they’re enjoying seafood that supports healthy oceans while experiencing the exceptional taste of Alaskan seafood.”

Observes Kolman Soifer, the group’s food and beverage programs manager: “I think people are coming up a lot more Alaska-savvy than maybe 30 years ago. They have their Alaska bucket lists, and eating fresh Alaskan seafood is in the top three of everybody’s list.”

Engaging Communities
The Holland America Princess team also supports SeaShare, a nonprofit organization that distributes Alaska seafood to food banks across the state and the Pacific Northwest. This partnership extends the team’s commitment to responsible seafood practices while helping to address food insecurity in the region.

This approach to sustainable seafood reflects the Holland America and Princess organizations’ deep-rooted connection to Alaska, where hundreds of full-time team members live year-round. The certification represents more than just responsible dining – it embodies the company’s commitment to the state’s marine ecosystems, local economies and cultural heritage.

By uniting culinary excellence with environmental stewardship, Holland America Princess delivers an authentic experience where meals have a meaningful impact. As guests savor these ocean-friendly choices, they’re participating in a larger story of sustainability that extends from pristine waters to dining tables, ensuring Alaska’s maritime treasures remain accessible for generations to come.